Rhode Island School of Design (RISD, icon) is a fine arts and design college located in Providence, Rhode Island

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

. It was founded in 1877. Located at the base of College Hill

College Hill, Providence, Rhode Island

College Hill is a neighborhood in Providence, Rhode Island, and one of six neighborhoods comprising the East Side of Providence and part of College Hill Historic District. It is roughly bounded by North Main Street to the west, Power Street to the south, Governor Street and Arlington Avenue to...

, the RISD campus is contiguous with the Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

 campus. The two institutions share social, academic, and community resources and offer joint courses. Applicants to RISD are required to complete RISD's infamous two-drawing "hometest", one of which involves the trademark RISD bicycle drawing. The school consistently ranks as the number one fine arts college in the United States.

It includes about 350 faculty and curators, and 400 staff members. About 1,880 undergraduates and 370 graduate students enroll from all over the United States and 50 other countries. It offers 16 undergraduate majors and 17 graduate majors. RISD is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design

Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design

The Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design is a non-profit consortium of 41 leading art and design colleges in the United States and Canada. All AICAD member institutions have a curriculum with full liberal arts and sciences requirements complementing studio work, and all are...

 (AICAD), a consortium of thirty-six leading art schools in the United States. It also maintains over 80,000 works of art in the RISD Museum.

History

The Centennial Women were a group formed to raise funds for Rhode Island's exhibit at the Centennial Exposition

Centennial Exposition

The Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the United States, was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from May 10 to November 10, 1876, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. It was officially...

 in 1876. The group had $1,675 left over after the exposition, and, inspired by foreign exhibits on design and interior decorating, Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf persuaded the group to donate the money to found what would become the Rhode Island School of Design. The school was incorporated in 1877 and opened its doors the following fall. Metcalf directed the school until her death in 1895. Her daughter, Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, then took over until her death in 1931.

The Rhode Island General Assembly

Rhode Island General Assembly

The State of Rhode Island General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. A bicameral body, it is composed of the lower Rhode Island House of Representatives with 75 representatives, and the upper Rhode Island Senate with 38 senators...

 ratified “An Act to Incorporate the Rhode Island School of Design” on March 22, 1877. “For the purpose of aiding in the cultivation of the arts of design.” Over the next 129 years, the following original by-laws set forth these following primary objectives:

First. The instruction of artisans in drawing, painting, modeling, and designing, that they may successfully apply the principles of Art to the requirements of trade and manufacture.

Second. The systematic training of students in the practice of Art, in order that they may understand its principles, give instruction to others, or become artists.

Third. The general advancement of public Art Education, by the exhibition of works of Art and of Art school studies, and by lectures on Art.

Programs of study

• Apparel Design - B.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/apparel.cfm
• Architecture
  Architecture
  Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
  
   - B.F.A./B.Arch, M.Arch http://www.risd.edu/architecture.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_architecture.cfm
• Ceramics - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/ceramics.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_ceramics.cfm
• Digital + Media
  Digital art
  Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
  
   - M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/digital_media.cfm
• Film
  Film
  A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
  
  /Animation
  Animation
  Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
  
  /Video
  Video
  Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
  
   - B.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/film.cfm
• Furniture
  Furniture
  Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
  
   Design - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/furniture.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_furniture.cfm
• Glass
  Glass
  Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
  
   - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/glass.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_glass.cfm
• Graphic Design
  Graphic design
  Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
  
   - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/graphic.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_graphic.cfm
• Illustration
  Illustration
  An illustration is a displayed visualization form presented as a drawing, painting, photograph or other work of art that is created to elucidate or dictate sensual information by providing a visual representation graphically.- Early history :The earliest forms of illustration were prehistoric...
  
   - B.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/illustration.cfm
• Industrial Design
  Industrial design
  Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...
  
   - B.F.A., B.I.D., M.I.D. http://www.risd.edu/industrial.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_industrial.cfm
• Interior Architecture
  Interior architecture
  Interior Architecture is truly a marriage of three distinct design disciplines: interior design, architecture, and industrial design...
  
   - M.A. http://www.risd.edu/interiorarch.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_interior.cfm
• Department of Interior Architecture: Degree in Interior Studies: Adaptive Reuse - B.F.A., M.Des http://www.risd.edu/interiorarch.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_interior.cfm
• Jewelry/Metalsmithing - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/jewelry.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_jewel.cfm
• Landscape Architecture
  Landscape architecture
  Landscape architecture is the design of outdoor and public spaces to achieve environmental, socio-behavioral, or aesthetic outcomes. It involves the systematic investigation of existing social, ecological, and geological conditions and processes in the landscape, and the design of interventions...
  
   - M.L.A. http://www.risd.edu/graduate_landscape.cfm
• Painting
  Painting
  Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
  
   - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/painting.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_painting.cfm
• Photography
  Photography
  Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
  
   - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/photo.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_photo.cfm
• Printmaking
  Printmaking
  Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...
  
   - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/printmaking.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_printmaking.cfm
• Sculpture
  Sculpture
  Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
  
   - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/sculpture.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_sculpture.cfm
• Teaching & Learning in Art & Design - M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/graduate_arted.cfm
• Textiles - B.F.A., M.F.A. http://www.risd.edu/textiles.cfm http://www.risd.edu/graduate_textiles.cfm

Rankings

RISD is annually ranked as the top art school in the United States. U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

ranked RISD 1st among among Fine Arts programs, above Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Within subdivisions of Fine Arts, the school was ranked 1st in graphic design

Graphic design

Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...

, interior design

Interior design

Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...

, and glass

Glass

Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...

; 2nd in industrial design

Industrial design

Industrial design is the use of a combination of applied art and applied science to improve the aesthetics, ergonomics, and usability of a product, but it may also be used to improve the product's marketability and production...

, metals/jewelry, and printmaking

Printmaking

Printmaking is the process of making artworks by printing, normally on paper. Printmaking normally covers only the process of creating prints with an element of originality, rather than just being a photographic reproduction of a painting. Except in the case of monotyping, the process is capable...

; and 3rd in ceramics, multimedia

Multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...

, painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, photography

Photography

Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...

, and sculpture

Sculpture

Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...

.

Concentrations

Concentrations at RISD do not confer a degree; they act like minors at other education institutions and require courses in the chosen field.

• History
  History
  History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
  
  , Philosophy
  Philosophy
  Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
  
  , Social Sciences
  Social sciences
  Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
  
  
• English
  English studies
  English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language , English linguistics English studies is an academic discipline that includes the study of literatures written in the English language (including literatures from the U.K., U.S.,...
  
  
• Art History
  Art history
  Art history has historically been understood as the academic study of objects of art in their historical development and stylistic contexts, i.e. genre, design, format, and style...
  
  

RISD Museum

The RISD Museum houses a collection of fine and decorative art objects. The first public galleries opened in 1893.

Past presidents

E. Roger Mandle
1993-2008

Louis A. Fazzano
1992-1993
(interim president)

Thomas F. Schutte
1983-1992

Lee Hall
1975-1983

Talbot Rantoul
1969-1975

Donald M. Lay, Jr.
1968-1969
(interim president)

Albert Bush-Brown

Albert Bush-Brown

Albert Bush-Brown was an architectural historian and American university president...

1962-1968

John R. Frazier
1955-1962

Max W. Sullivan
1947-1955

Helen Metcalf Danforth
1931-1947

Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke
1913-1931

Isaac Comstock Bates
1907-1913

William Carey Poland
1896-1907

Herbert Warren Ladd
1891-1896

Alfred Henry Littlefield
June 11–27, 1890 (resigned)

Royal Chapin Taft
1888-1890

Claudius Buchanan Farnsworth
1877-1888

Fleet Library

Founded in 1878, the RISD Library is one of the oldest independent art college libraries in the country. Its more than 145,000 volumes and 380 periodical subscriptions offer unusual depth and richness in the areas of architecture, art, design and photography. The collection provides strong historical and contemporary perspectives, and materials in landscape architecture, ceramics, textiles, and jewelry support upper-level research. The library is also noted for its artist’s book collection, its rare books and outstanding visual resources collections.

A nationally award-winning example of adaptive reuse, this 55,000-sf renovated bank building and second floor houses 130,000 books, 685,000 image and sound holdings, and 1,200 artists books.

Students also have access to Brown University libraries and the Providence Athenaeum

Providence Athenaeum

The Providence Athenaeum, founded in 1753 in Providence, Rhode Island, is the fourth oldest subscription library in the United States. Only the Library Company of Philadelphia, founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, Newport's Redwood Library and Athenaeum, founded in 1747, and the Charleston Library...

.

Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts

Commencement speaker indicated by *

2009

• Caterina Fake
  Caterina Fake
  Caterina Fake is an American businesswoman and internet entrepreneur.Fake was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall, attended Smith College, and graduated from Vassar College in 1991....
  
  
• Jonathan Ive
  Jonathan Ive
  Jonathan "Jony" Ive, CBE is an English designer and the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc. He is the leading designer and conceptual mind behind the iMac, titanium and aluminum PowerBook G4, G4 Cube, MacBook, unibody MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.- Early...
  
  
• Roger Mandle
  Roger Mandle
  Roger Mandle is an art historian, curator and academic administrator, best known as the former president of The Rhode Island School of Design, one of the country's most selective art colleges.-Early Life and Education:...
  
  
• Sir Ken Robinson
  Sir Ken Robinson
  Sir Ken Robinson is an author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies...
  
  *

2008

• Laurie Anderson
  Laurie Anderson
  Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
  
  *
• Yo-Yo Ma
  Yo-Yo Ma
  Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...
  
  
• Ed Ruscha
• Roberta Smith
  Roberta Smith
  Roberta Smith is an art critic for the New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art.Born in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa. Her career in the arts started in 1968 while an undergraduate summer intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in...
  
  

2007

• Gore Vidal
  Gore Vidal
  Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
  
  *
• Richard Leacock
  Richard Leacock
  Richard Leacock was a British-born documentary film director and one of the pioneers of Direct Cinema and Cinéma vérité.-Early life and career:...
  
  
• Seth MacFarlane
  Seth MacFarlane
  Seth Woodbury MacFarlane is an American animator, writer, comedian, producer, actor, singer, voice actor, and director best known for creating the animated sitcoms Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show, for which he also voices many of the shows' various characters.A native of Kent,...
  
  

2005

• Kurt Andersen
  Kurt Andersen
  Kurt Andersen is an American novelist who is also host of the Peabody-winning public radio program Studio 360, a co-production between Public Radio International and WNYC. In 1986 with E. Graydon Carter he co-founded Spy magazine, which they sold in 1991; it continued publishing until 1998...
  
  *
• Deborah Berke
• Zuzana Licko
  Zuzana Licko
  Zuzana Licko is a typeface designer based out of the San Francisco Bay Area who was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia.Licko came to the United States when she was a child along with her family...
  
  
• Rudy VanderLans
  Rudy VanderLans
  Rudy VanderLans is a Dutch type and graphic designer and the co-founder of Emigre, an independent type foundry.VanderLans studied at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague. Later, he moved to California and studied photography at the University of California, Berkeley...
  
  
• Yuri Norstein
• Eva Zeisel
  Eva Zeisel
  Eva Striker Zeisel is a Hungarian-born industrial designer known for her work with ceramics, primarily from the period after she immigrated to the United States. Her forms are often abstractions of the natural world and human relationships...
  
  

2004

• Nathan Lyons
  Nathan Lyons
  Nathan Lyons is an American artist and photographer who currently lives and works in New York. The artist's body of work consists primarily of photographs which focus on American culture...
  
  
• David Macaulay
  David Macaulay
  David Macaulay is an author and illustrator. Now a resident of Norwich, Vermont, United States, he is an alumnus and faculty member at the Rhode Island School of Design.- Biography :...
  
  *
• Esther Metcalf Mauran

2003

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is a Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake...
  
  
• Dave Hickey
  Dave Hickey
  David Hickey is an American art and cultural critic. He has written for many American publications including Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, and Vanity Fair...
  
  *
• Jenny Holzer
  Jenny Holzer
  Jenny Holzer is an American conceptual artist. Holzer lives and works in Hoosick Falls, New York.-Education:...
  
  
• Jens Risom
  Jens Risom
  Jens Risom is a Danish American furniture designer. An exemplar of Mid-Century modern design, Risom was one of the first designers to introduce Scandinavian design in the United States. Note: "Jens" is pronounced "Yenns", and almost rhymes with "fence".-Biography:Jens Risom was born in...
  
  

2002

• Henry Louis Gates Jr.*
• Szymon Bojko
• Ann Hamilton
  Ann Hamilton
  Ann Hamilton is a contemporary American artist best known for her installations, textile art, and sculptures, but is also active in the fields of photography, printmaking, video, and video installation....
  
  
• Pauline Trigère
  Pauline Trigère
  Pauline Trigère was a French-born American fashion designer, known for her crisp, tailored cuts and innovative ideas.The daughter of a tailor, Trigère was able to operate a sewing machine by age 10 and often assisted her dressmaker mother. Shortly after leaving school, Pauline was employed as a...
  
  
• Adrian Cann
  Adrian Cann
  Adrian Cann is a Canadian international soccer defender who currently plays for Toronto FC in Major League Soccer.-College:Cann had a college soccer career at the University of Louisville from 2000 to 2003...
  
  

1993

• Elizabeth Murray
  Elizabeth Murray (artist)
  Elizabeth Murray was an American painter, printmaker and draughtsman. Her works are in many major public collections, including those of the Solomon R...
  
  

1992

• Magdalena Abakanowicz
  Magdalena Abakanowicz
  Magdalena Abakanowicz is a Polish sculptor. She is notable for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium. She was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, Poland from 1965 to 1990 and a visiting professor at University of California, Los Angeles in 1984...
  
  

1988

• John Prip
  John Prip
  John Axel Prip , also known as Jack Prip, was a master metalsmith known for setting standards of excellence in American metalsmithing. His works and designs have become famous for bringing together the formal, technical tradition of Danish design into harmony with the American desire for innovation...
  
  
• Massimo Vignelli
  Massimo Vignelli
  Massimo Vignelli is a designer who has done work in a number of areas ranging from package design to furniture design to public signage to showroom design through Vignelli Associates, which he co-founded with his wife, Lella...
  
  

1987

• Frank Gehry
  Frank Gehry
  Frank Owen Gehry, is a Canadian American Pritzker Prize-winning architect based in Los Angeles, California.His buildings, including his private residence, have become tourist attractions...
  
  

1986

• Dale Chihuly
  Dale Chihuly
  Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor and entrepreneur.-Biography:Chihuly graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School in Tacoma, Washington. He enrolled at the College of the Puget Sound in 1959...
  
  

1983

• Beatrice (Oenslager) Chace

Unknown Year

• Louis A. Fazzano

External links

• RISD official website
• RISD blog
• RISD COMMUNITY blog
• RISD Intranet
• RISD Daily Jolt
• RISD GRAPHIC DESIGN
• RISD DIGITAL+MEDIA
• RISD ARCHITECTURE
• RISD INTERIOR STUDIES:ADAPTIVE REUSE
• RISD INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE JOURNAL
• Center for Design and Business
• Visible Language http://trex.id.iit.edu/visiblelanguage/Directory.html
• RESPOND | DESIGN
• BETTERXDESIGN: RISD + BROWN colLAB
• Honorary Degrees