Kent Institute of Art & Design
Encyclopedia
The Kent Institute of Art & Design (KIAD, often icon) was an art school
based across three campus
es in the county of Kent
, in the United Kingdom
. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone College of Art and Rochester (Medway) College of Art. In turn KIAD merged with the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College
on August 1, 2005 to form the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester. In 2008 this gained full university status and became the University for the Creative Arts.
KIAD offered further education
, higher education
, postgraduate and part time courses at three campuses, in Canterbury
, Maidstone
and Rochester.
in 1882, and known then as the Canterbury Sidney Cooper School of Art. After Cooper's death 1902 his art school continued until 1935 when it was taken over by the City of Canterbury Education Committee. The Education Committee took on all the assets and liabilities of the art school and until 1972 it remained housed in the building that had been Cooper's home and studio in the centre of Canterbury. It then moved to a new site on the New Dover Road.
Canterbury College of Art was by this time operating under the aegis of the newly reorganised Kent County Council
, along with the art schools at Maidstone and Rochester. Ravensbourne College of Art
located in Chislehurst
was also in an informal relationship to these three, by virtue of being technically in the county of Kent
, but under the administrative control of Bromley Borough Council rather than Kent County Council. It was the three colleges under the direct control of Kent County Council that went on to form KIAD in 1987.
A notable feature of the Canterbury College of Art at this time was the number of former-Leeds College of Art tutors and students who started working there. This arose from Thomas Watt being made Head of Fine Art at Canterbury in 1968, Watt having previously been a teaching colleague of Harry Thubron
at Leeds College of Art. Under Watt the radical Leeds teaching methods developed by Thubron were imported into Canterbury through the employment of other artists from Leeds, such as Stass Paraskos
, Tom Pemberton and Dennis Creffield
. Another key member of staff was Eric Hurren, who led the Foundation Course in Art and Design from 1963 to 1988.
The merger of institutions to create KIAD was not without controversy and was effectively imposed on Kent County Council by the central government's National Advisory Board for education. This was in spite of concerted opposition from the County Council, the colleges concerned, the local Member of Parliament
, David Crouch, and a large number of figures in the art world at the time, who petitioned parliament
. In the government's original proposal the intention was to merge the colleges and then close at least one of them. The creation of KIAD was, effectively, a compromise solution that saw duplicate courses at the different sites closed, but the individual colleges themselves remained open.
One of the ironies of the history of Canterbury College of Art is that the original home of the art school, in Cooper's house, again became a place for teaching art in 2004 when another educational institution in the city, Canterbury Christ Church University
, used the building to house its fine art faculty.
Past tutors include: Roland Piche, Alan Denman, Ian Dury
, Stephen Farthing
, David Hall
and David Hockney
. Artist Mike Chaplin
was a technician in the early 1970s.Quentin Crisp
was a model at the Maidstone College.
Art school
Art school is a general term for any educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. The term applies to institutions with elementary, secondary, post-secondary or undergraduate, or graduate or...
based across three campus
Campus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
es in the county of Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. It was formed by the amalgamation of three independent colleges: Canterbury College of Art, Maidstone College of Art and Rochester (Medway) College of Art. In turn KIAD merged with the Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College
Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College
The Surrey Institute of Art & Design, University College was an art college in the United Kingdom. It merged with the Kent Institute of Art & Design on 1 August 2005 to form the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester, now the University for...
on August 1, 2005 to form the University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester. In 2008 this gained full university status and became the University for the Creative Arts.
KIAD offered further education
Further education
Further education is a term mainly used in connection with education in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It is post-compulsory education , that is distinct from the education offered in universities...
, higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...
, postgraduate and part time courses at three campuses, in Canterbury
Canterbury
Canterbury is a historic English cathedral city, which lies at the heart of the City of Canterbury, a district of Kent in South East England. It lies on the River Stour....
, Maidstone
Maidstone
Maidstone is the county town of Kent, England, south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town linking Maidstone to Rochester and the Thames Estuary. Historically, the river was a source and route for much of the town's trade. Maidstone was the centre of the agricultural...
and Rochester.
History
Maidstone College of Art was founded in 1867, and Rochester College of Art in 1886. The origin of Canterbury College of Art lies in the private art school founded by the Victorian animal painter Thomas Sidney CooperThomas Sidney Cooper
Thomas Sidney Cooper was an English landscape painter noted for his images of cattle and farm animals.Cooper was born at Canterbury, Kent, and as a small child he began to show strong artistic inclinations, but the circumstances of his family did not allow him to received any systematic training...
in 1882, and known then as the Canterbury Sidney Cooper School of Art. After Cooper's death 1902 his art school continued until 1935 when it was taken over by the City of Canterbury Education Committee. The Education Committee took on all the assets and liabilities of the art school and until 1972 it remained housed in the building that had been Cooper's home and studio in the centre of Canterbury. It then moved to a new site on the New Dover Road.
Canterbury College of Art was by this time operating under the aegis of the newly reorganised Kent County Council
Kent County Council
Kent County Council is the county council that governs the majority of the county of Kent in England. It provides the upper tier of local government, below which are 12 district councils, and around 300 town and parish councils. The county council has 84 elected councillors...
, along with the art schools at Maidstone and Rochester. Ravensbourne College of Art
Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication
Ravensbourne is a university sector college innovating in digital media and design, with a vocationally focused portfolio of courses, spanning fashion, television and broadcasting, interactive product design, architecture and environment design, graphic design, animation, moving image, music...
located in Chislehurst
Chislehurst
Chislehurst is a suburban district in south-east London, England, and an electoral ward of the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
was also in an informal relationship to these three, by virtue of being technically in the county of Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, but under the administrative control of Bromley Borough Council rather than Kent County Council. It was the three colleges under the direct control of Kent County Council that went on to form KIAD in 1987.
A notable feature of the Canterbury College of Art at this time was the number of former-Leeds College of Art tutors and students who started working there. This arose from Thomas Watt being made Head of Fine Art at Canterbury in 1968, Watt having previously been a teaching colleague of Harry Thubron
Harry Thubron
Harry Thubron was an English artist and art teacher.During the 1950s and 60s Thubron was a familiar name in education for his pioneering experiments in post-school art education. He taught at Sunderland College of Art from 1950 to 1955, and then became Head of Fine Art at Leeds College of Art...
at Leeds College of Art. Under Watt the radical Leeds teaching methods developed by Thubron were imported into Canterbury through the employment of other artists from Leeds, such as Stass Paraskos
Stass Paraskos
Stass Paraskos is an artist from Cyprus, although much of his life was spent teaching and working in England.-Early life:Paraskos was born in Anaphotia, on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus in 1933, the son of a shepherd farmer. He went to England in 1953 and became a cook in his brother's...
, Tom Pemberton and Dennis Creffield
Dennis Creffield
Dennis Creffield is a British artist with work owned by major British art collections, including the Tate Gallery, Arts Council of England, the Government Art Collection, Leeds City Art Gallery, University of Leeds collection, University of Brighton collection and others.-Early life and...
. Another key member of staff was Eric Hurren, who led the Foundation Course in Art and Design from 1963 to 1988.
The merger of institutions to create KIAD was not without controversy and was effectively imposed on Kent County Council by the central government's National Advisory Board for education. This was in spite of concerted opposition from the County Council, the colleges concerned, the local Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
, David Crouch, and a large number of figures in the art world at the time, who petitioned parliament
Parliament
A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modeled after that of the United Kingdom. The name is derived from the French , the action of parler : a parlement is a discussion. The term came to mean a meeting at which...
. In the government's original proposal the intention was to merge the colleges and then close at least one of them. The creation of KIAD was, effectively, a compromise solution that saw duplicate courses at the different sites closed, but the individual colleges themselves remained open.
One of the ironies of the history of Canterbury College of Art is that the original home of the art school, in Cooper's house, again became a place for teaching art in 2004 when another educational institution in the city, Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury Christ Church University is a university in Canterbury, Kent, England. Founded as a Church of England college for teaching training it has grown to full university status and will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2012. The focus of its work is in the education of people going into...
, used the building to house its fine art faculty.
Notable alumni/tutors
- Wale AdeyemiWalé AdeyemiWalé Adeyemi, MBE, is a young British designer and stylist.Adeyemi attended Thurrock and Basildon College.He was presented the Fashion and Design Award at the Multi-Cultural Awards in 2001. He is an ambassador for the Prince's Trust. As well as his clothing label B-side, which he describes as...
, fashion designer - Billy ChildishBilly ChildishBilly Childish is an English artist, painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer and guitarist...
, foundation 1977(who was banned from the Rochester site at Fort PittFort PittFort Pitt may refer to:*Fort Pitt , on the site of present-day Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States*Fort Pitt, Kent, in the United Kingdom*Fort Pitt , a trading post of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada...
in the Medway Towns in 1981 for publishing 'obscene' poetry), - David ShawDavid Shaw (painter)David Shaw , painter, print-maker and lecturer.David Douglas Ernest Shaw, the son of William Shaw by his wife Alice Frid, was born, lived and died in Kent....
, painter, silk-screener, tutor - Toni del RenzioToni del RenzioAntonino Romanov del Renzio dei Rossi di Castellone e Venosa , an artist and writer of Italian and Russian parentage, was leader of the British Surrealist Group for a period....
, artist and writer - Tracey EminTracey EminTracey Karima Emin RA is a British artist of English and Turkish Cypriot origin. She is part of the group known as Britartists or YBAs ....
, 1999 Turner Prize nominee - Bob Holness, broadcaster
- Lasse GjertsenLasse GjertsenLasse Gjertsen is a Norwegian animator, musician, and videographer known on YouTube as lassegg. He is best known for his short pieces "Hyperactive" and "Amateur", which string together short clips of video to create a unique form of video akin to stop-motion animation...
, videographer - Tony HartTony HartNorman Antony "Tony" Hart was an English artist and children's television presenter. He was famous for television shows such as Vision On, Playbox, Take Hart and Hartbeat.-Early life:...
, TV personality - Jackie HatfieldJackie HatfieldJackie Hatfield was an artist, writer, and academic.-Biography:Her early career was spent making papier-mâché sculptures which enjoyed some recognition and sales before she undertook a variety of casual and sometimes unusual roles. One night, attending a London Film-Makers' Co-op screening, she...
, artist and writer - Zandra RhodesZandra RhodesZandra Rhodes, CBE, RDI, is an English fashion designer.Zandra Rhodes was introduced to the world of fashion by her mother, who was a fitter in a Paris fashion house and a teacher at Medway College of Art, now the University for the Creative Arts. Rhodes studied first at Medway and then at the...
, fashion designer - Madeleine Press, fashion designer
- Karen MillenKaren MillenKaren Millen is an Icelandic owned women’s designer clothing brand, specialising in tailoring, coats and eveningwear. Karen Millen stores are found throughout the United Kingdom, America, Austria, Denmark, the Republic of Ireland and many other European countries.-History:The company was founded in...
, fashion designer - Wendy Dagworthy, fashion designer
- Roger Dean, artist
- Jayne Parker, artist
- Stass ParaskosStass ParaskosStass Paraskos is an artist from Cyprus, although much of his life was spent teaching and working in England.-Early life:Paraskos was born in Anaphotia, on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus in 1933, the son of a shepherd farmer. He went to England in 1953 and became a cook in his brother's...
, artist and founder of the Cyprus College of ArtCyprus College of ArtThe Cyprus College of Art is a post-secondary art instutution located in the Mediterranean island of, Cyprus.-Academics:CyCA offers beginner courses in art, university-entrance programmes in art and design, bachelor degree equivalent programmes in Fine Art , and Master of Fine Art degrees at... - Will Robson, mosaic artist
- John Joseph HaldaneJohn Joseph HaldaneJohn Joseph Haldane is a leading Scottish philosopher, commentator and broadcaster. He is a Papal Adviser to the Vatican. He is credited with coining the term Analytical Thomism, and is himself a Thomist in the analytic tradition....
, philosopher, broadcaster - Mary TourtelMary TourtelMary Tourtel was an English artist and creator of Rupert Bear.-Biography:Tourtel was born as Mary Caldwell and raised in an artistic family, daughter of a stained glass artist and stonemason. She studied art under Thomas Sidney Cooper at the Sidney Cooper School of Art in Canterbury, and became a...
, creator and illustrator of Rupert Bear - James MayhewJames MayhewJames John Mayhew is a well-known English illustrator and author of children's books.Brought up in Blundeston, Suffolk, on leaving school Mayhew studied art at Lowestoft School of Art from 1982 to 1984, and then illustration at Maidstone College of Art, graduating BA in 1987 with first class honours...
, writer and illustrator of children's books - Andrew KöttingAndrew KöttingAndrew Kötting is a British film director, writer and artist.Kötting was born in Kent. He studied BA Fine Art at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design, London, 1984; MA in Mixed Media, Slade School of Art, London 1988. In 1989 he collaborated with Leila McMillan in setting up BadBLoOd & siBYL...
, film maker, writer, artist - Mike Chavez-DawsonMike Chavez-DawsonMike Chavez-Dawson is an English artist and curator.Chavez-Dawson graduated from Manchester Metropolitan University, Interactive Arts BA in 1997 and MA in 1999. He is attaining a PhD research fellow at MIRIAD under the supervision of Dr. Patricia Allmer, Prof. Jim Aulich and Prof. John Hyatt...
, artist, curator and publisher - StuckistStuckismStuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting in opposition to conceptual art...
artists: Charles ThomsonCharles Thomson (artist)Charles Thomson is an English artist, painter, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art...
, Bill LewisBill LewisWilliam "Bill" Lewis is an English artist, story-teller, poet and mythographer. He was a founder-member of The Medway Poets and of the Stuckists art group.-Early life:...
, Philip AbsolonPhilip AbsolonPhilip Absolon is a British artist and a founder member of the Stuckists art group, exhibiting in the group shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery in 2004, and taking part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize...
, Charles WilliamsCharles Williams (artist)Charles Williams is a British artist. He is a founder member of the Stuckist art group and a member of the New English Art Club.-Life and work:Charles Williams was born in Evanston, Illinois USA and raised in England...
, Sanchia Lewis. - Humphrey OceanHumphrey Ocean-Biography:Humphrey Ocean was born Humphrey Anthony Erdeswick Butler-Bowdon, on 22 June 1951 in Sussex, England, and went to art schools in Tunbridge Wells, Brighton and Canterbury...
, artist - Babette ColeBabette ColeBabette Cole, born in 1949, is an English children's writer and illustrator. She has written over 70 picture books and her best-selling book Doctor Dog has been made into a successful children's cartoon series...
, children's writer and illustrator - Gordon FrickersGordon FrickersGordon Frickers is a marine artist based in Plymouth, Devon, but also paints in France. Frickers was the first marine artist to be exhibited at the European Parliament in Brussels in May 2011...
, marine artist - Tony Duggan-Smith, artist, film maker, luthier and co-leader of Canadian cult band, Pukka OrchestraPukka OrchestraThe Pukka Orchestra was a Canadian New Wave band in the 1980s. The core of the band consisted of vocalist Graeme Williamson and guitarists Neil Chapman and Tony Duggan-Smith, although the band made frequent use of guest musicians....
Past tutors include: Roland Piche, Alan Denman, Ian Dury
Ian Dury
Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...
, Stephen Farthing
Stephen Farthing
Stephen Farthing RA is a prominent English painter.- Education :Stephen Farthing grew up in London and after resisting the temptation to join the Royal Navy, earned a bachelor’s degree from the St. Martin’s School of Art in 1973 and a Masters degree in painting from the Royal College of Art,...
, David Hall
David Hall (video artist)
David Hall is a British video artist, whose pioneering work did much to establish video as an art form.-Life and work:David Hall attended Leicester College of Art and the Royal College of Art. During the 1960s he worked as a sculptor and showed his work internationally...
and David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
. Artist Mike Chaplin
Mike Chaplin
Michael James Chaplin NDD, RWS, RE, FRSA is a British artist, known primarily for his work in the mediums of etching and watercolour. He was guest art expert on the Channel 4 art programme Watercolour Challenge with Hannah Gordon.-Life:Mike was born at Little Barford, to the south of St...
was a technician in the early 1970s.Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp
Quentin Crisp , was an English writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant.- Early life :...
was a model at the Maidstone College.