The Government College of Arts, Chandigarh is an art institute in Chandigarh, India. Established in 1951 by SL Prashar, it offers professional education in art to students from over 68 years. This institute is one among the first three art institutions of India. It has a history of almost 132 years, initially, it was initially established as Mayo School of Industrial art in 1875 for purpose to provide industrial drawing as the world was on industrial revolution. John Lockwood Kipling was appointed as the first principal of the institution, which is now active as National College of Arts in Lahore. It came up on 16 August 1951 as splinter

Mayo School of Arts, Lahore The National College of Arts (colloquially known as NCA) is a public university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Overview National College of Arts - A Federal Chartered Institute is the oldest art school in Pakistan and the second oldest i ...

in Pakistan after

Partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the Partition (politics), change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: ...

. In 1951 it was first established as Government School of Art and craft at Shimla, the capital of Punjab and subsequently Govt. College of art and craft, Chandigarh. On re-organization of Punjab, the control came under Chandigarh Administration. This institution is situated in Sector 10 C, adjoining the Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh.

History

Government College of Art, Chandigarh the Institution is recognised as Mayo School's post-colonial cousins in India. Primarily it was set up by the British on the name of Mayo School of Art, at Lahore (now in Pakistan) in the year 1875. After the partition of the country, it was re-organized upon the prototype of Mayo School, as Government school of art and craft, at Shimla on 16 August 1951. The syllabus was modelled on the pattern of the Lahore school. Initially, it was put under the administrative control of Director of Industries and Industrial Training, Punjab. In 1962, when Chandigarh came up as the new Capital of Punjab, the school of Art was shifted to its current location. Adjoining is the Government Museum and Art Gallery Chandigarh. The campus has been designed as a composite Cultural Complex by the French-Swiss architect

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

. The first principal and founder of this college in Chandigarh was S. L. Prashar.

Campus

Dhanraj Bhagat Dhanraj Bhagat (1917–1988) was an Indian sculptor, considered by many as one of the major sculptors of the Indian subcontinent. He was born in 1917 in Lahore, in the erstwhile British India and secured a diploma in sculpture from the National ...

Sculpture park in the College campus, was set up on 15 October 2010, that became an open-air workshop for the students to work in open classroom and an option to recover from the constraint of time and space of regular college routine, as a result, it came up with a permanent exhibition of artworks in the institution. S L Prashar Art Gallery was inaugurated on 16 June 2012, and the first exhibition with old photographs dating back to 1951 on diamond jubilee of the institution.

Courses

Government College of Art, Chandigarh offers a graduate and a postgraduate degree in four main branches, namely, Painting, Sculpture, Print Making and Applied Art. Since the year 2002, The college has instituted another full-time diploma course of 4 years duration and special diploma course of 2 years duration since 2012 for deaf and Mute/Mentally Challenged students in Fine Arts (all the four disciplines)

Notable alumni

* Satish Gujral *

Sohan Qadri Sohan Qadri (born 2 November 1932, in Punjab, India – died 2 March 2011, in Toronto, Canada) was a yogi, poet and a painter from India who lived in Copenhagen for 30 years. During his life, Qadri interacted with a number of well-known cultur ...

* Avtarjeet Singh Dhanjal * Shiv Singh * Sidharth (artist) * Diwan Manna * Thukral & Tagra *

Vibha Galhotra Vibha Galhotra, born 1978 is an Indian conceptual artist based in New Delhi. Her work includes large-scale installations, sculptures, drawings, films that explore themes of ecological and Environmental issue, environmental concerns. Her works add ...

* D. S. Kapoor *

R. M. Singh Rahi Mohinder Singh better known as RM Singh, is a Punjabi-speaking Indian painter, illustrator, and teacher. He studied under artist Sobha Singh. He has painted many men and women of importance and his portraits have been exhibited the Parl ...

* Gurpreet Singh Dhuri * Manjot Kaur * Randeep Maddoke * DrJogender Pal Singh

References

{{authority control 1951 establishments in East Punjab Art schools in India Partition of India Punjabi artists