Norwich University of the Arts (NUA) is a

public university A public university or public college is a university or college that is in owned by the state or receives significant public funds through a national or subnational government, as opposed to a private university. Whether a national universit ...

Norwich, Norfolk Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, w ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

that specialises in art,

design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

and media. It was founded as Norwich School of Design in 1845 and has a long history of arts education. It gained full university status in 2013. NUA is the smaller of two universities in Norwich, the other being the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

History

The history of the university dates back to 1845 when the Norwich School of Design was established to provide designers for local industries. Its founders were the artists and followers of the '

Norwich School of Painters The Norwich School of painters was the first provincial art movement established in Britain, active in the early 19th century. Artists of the school were inspired by the natural environment of the Norfolk landscape and owed some influence to the wo ...

', the only provincial British group to establish an international reputation for landscape painting. Degree-level provision has been offered since 1965, when it was approved to offer the Diploma in Art and Design, validated by the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design (NCDAD). After 1965 the School of Art made its own mark on the national art and design scene when twin strengths in Painting and Graphic Design emerged under a group of exceptional practitioners and teachers. From 1975, after NCDAD's merger with the

Council for National Academic Awards The Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA) was the national degree-awarding authority in the United Kingdom from 1965 until its dissolution on 20 April 1993. Background The establishment followed the recommendation of the UK government Com ...

(CNAA), the School offered its first BA Honours degree courses in

Fine Art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

and

Graphic Design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

, validated by CNAA. In 1989 the School merged with

Great Yarmouth Great Yarmouth (), often called Yarmouth, is a seaside town and unparished area in, and the main administrative centre of, the Borough of Great Yarmouth in Norfolk, England; it straddles the River Yare and is located east of Norwich. A pop ...

College of Art to form the Norfolk Institute of Art and Design (NIAD). In 1991 Norfolk Institute of Art and Design become an Associate College of the new

Anglia Polytechnic Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a public university in East Anglia, United Kingdom. Its origins are in the Cambridge School of Art, founded by William John Beamont in 1858. It became a university in 1992, and was renamed after John Ruskin in ...

with the polytechnic assuming validation responsibilities from CNAA from September 1992. This agreement extended to postgraduate provision, with the first MA course being introduced in 1993 (MA Fine Art) and the first research degree student being registered in 1995. In 1994, NIAD was incorporated as a Higher Education Institution (HEI), renamed as Norwich School of Art and Design and re-launched with a new corporate identity. In November 2007, the School was granted the power to award its own degrees up to Master's level and was renamed Norwich University College of the Arts. In 2012, a reduction in the threshold of number of students required for a university (from 4000 to 1000) made the college eligible for university status. Its university status was recognized in 2013, and its name changed to Norwich University of the Arts; the first chancellor was

John Hurt Sir John Vincent Hurt (22 January 1940 – 25 January 2017) was an English actor whose career spanned over five decades. Hurt was regarded as one of Britain's finest actors. Director David Lynch described him as "simply the greatest actor in t ...

Buildings

University College of the Arts, Duke St - geograph

The university campus comprises eleven buildings located in

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

city centre. Francis House which is located on Redwell Street is the main reception for NUA, while the majority of academic facilities are a two-minute walk away, along the pedestrianised St Georges Street, with additional sites on the neighbouring Duke Street and St Andrews Street. Teaching facilities include a large Apple Mac and Windows suite, A1 style printing rooms, wood and metal workshops with a functioning forge, stop-motion animation studios, professional sound booths, open-plan design and illustration studios, constructed textiles and fashion workshops, lecture theatre and comprehensive library. There are three areas of accommodation for year one students: the newly developed All Saints Green halls of residence comprising a total of 228 rooms, the Beechcroft complex off Sprowston Road and Harvard Court.

Organisation and structure

The Vice-Chancellor is Professor Simon Ofield-Kerr and the Chancellor is the British filmmaker

Amma Asante Amma Asante (born 13 September 1969) is a British filmmaker, screenwriter, former actress, and Chancellor at Norwich University of the Arts, who was born in London to parents from Ghana. Her love for the film industry started when she received ...

Academic profile

Undergraduate courses are offered in a range of art and design fields, including

Animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

Architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing building ...

, Design for Publishing,

Fashion Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

, Fashion Communication and Promotion, Film and Moving Image Publishing,

, Games Art and Design,

Graphic Communication Graphic communication as the name suggests is communication using graphic elements. These elements include symbols such as glyphs and icons, images such as drawings and photographs, and can include the passive contributions of substrate, colour ...

Illustration An illustration is a decoration, interpretation or visual explanation of a text, concept or process, designed for integration in print and digital published media, such as posters, flyers, magazines, books, teaching materials, animations, vid ...

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

, Textile Design and

VFX Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action foota ...

. Postgraduate courses include

MAs Mas, Más or MAS may refer to: Film and TV * Más y Menos, fictional superhero characters, from the Teen Titans animated television series * Más (Breaking Bad), "Más" (''Breaking Bad''), a season three episode of ''Breaking Bad'' Songs * Más ( ...

in Communication Design, Curation, Fashion, Fine Art, Games, Moving Image and Sound, Photography, and Textile Design. MPhil and PhD

research degree Research is " creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness ...

s are also offered in many arts, design, and media areas.

Research

NUA entered the national

Research Excellence Framework The Research Excellence Framework (REF) is a research impact evaluation of British higher education institutions. It is the successor to the Research Assessment Exercise and it was first used in 2014 to assess the period 2008–2013. REF is underta ...

in 2014 with funding awarded to develop capability. In the 2014 REF submission, 55% of NUA's submitted research was confirmed to be "world leading" or "internationally excellent". NUA's research has been judged to be particularly successful in terms of its impact on the broader cultural and economic landscape: 40% of NUA research has been classified as "world leading" and 50% as "internationally excellent". Norwich University of the Arts is a founding member of CREST, the Consortium for Research Excellence Support and Training, a group of higher education institutes that does interdisciplinary work related to research excellence and research focused staff and student training.

Students' Union

The students' union represents all students and focuses on student experience, support, and activities. The union also has student offers and discount bus passes. It is affiliated with the

National Union of Students (United Kingdom) The National Union of Students (NUS) is a confederation of Students' union, student unions in the United Kingdom. Around 600 student unions are affiliated, accounting for more than 95% of all higher and further education unions in the UK. Altho ...

Notable people

Alumni include: * Michael Andrews, artist *

Marjorie May Bacon Marjorie May Bacon, later Marjorie Macbeth-Raeburn (6 January 1902 – 9 February 1988) was a British printmaker and painter. Biography Bacon was born in Ipswich and lived in Great Yarmouth as a child. Bacon attended Yarmouth Art School f ...

, painter and printmaker *

Brian Bolland Brian Bolland (; born 26 March 1951)Salisbury, Mark, ''Artists on Comic Art'' (Titan Books, 2000) , p. 11 is a British comics artist. Best known in the United Kingdom as one of the definitive Judge Dredd artists for British comics anthology '' 2 ...

, comic artist on Batman: The Killing Joke * Glenn Brown, Turner Prize nominee *

Keith Chapman Keith Chapman (born 1959) is a British television writer and producer, best known as the creator of children's television programmes ''Bob the Builder'' and ''PAW Patrol.'' Biography He worked for Jim Henson International, designing characters ...

, television writer and producer, creator of

Bob the Builder ''Bob the Builder'' is a British animated children's television series created by Keith Chapman for HIT Entertainment and Hot Animation. The series follows the adventures of Bob, a building contractor, specialising in masonry, along with hi ...

Elsie Vera Cole Elsie Vera Cole (27 July 1885 – 2 January 1967) was an English painter, engraver and art teacher. Biography Cole was born in Braintree in Essex to the congregational minister William Cole and his wife Ellen née Holmes. Cole went to school i ...

, painter *

Stuart Craig Norman Stuart Craig (born 14 April 1942) is a noted British production designer. He has also designed the sets, together with his frequent collaborator set decorator, the late Stephenie McMillan, on all of the ''Harry Potter'' films to date. Li ...

, production designer *

Leslie Davenport Frank William Leslie Davenport ARCA (21 April 1905–28 February 1973) was a 20th-century British artist and teacher and a member of the Norwich Twenty Group of painters. Born in Harrow the son of Rowland Davenport and Mary Emily (née Hay ...

, artist and teacher * Oona Grimes, artist *

Susan Gunn Susan Gunn is a British artist. She was born in present-day Greater Manchester, England in 1965, and studied at Norwich University of the Arts where she was awarded a First Class BA Honours in Fine Art Painting in 2004. In 2006 she was awarded t ...

, painter and Sovereign European Art Prize winner *

Neil Innes Neil James Innes (; 9 December 1944 – 29 December 2019) was an English writer, comedian and musician. He first came to prominence in the pioneering comedy rock group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and later became a frequent collaborator with the Mon ...

, musician, writer for

Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...

and member of

The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (also known as The Bonzo Dog Band or The Bonzos) was created by a group of British art-school students in the 1960s. Combining elements of music hall, trad jazz and psychedelia with surreal humour and avant-garde art, ...

Leafcutter John Leafcutter John is the recording name of John Burton, a UK-based musician and artist. He makes frequent use of Max/MSP in his compositions. Much of Burton's style is based in computer music and use of samples of everyday sounds. However, he a ...

, jazz musician for

Mercury Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...

nominees

Polar Bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear specie ...

* Paul Johnson, paper engineer and book artist *

Zebedee Jones Zebedee Jones (born 12 March 1970) is a British abstract painter. Life and work Zebedee Jones was born in London. He attended Camberwell College of Arts, Norwich University of the Arts and Chelsea School of Art and Design graduating in 1993 ...

, painter with works in the

Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

Collection *

Robert Kennedy Robert Francis Kennedy (November 20, 1925June 6, 1968), also known by his initials RFK and by the nickname Bobby, was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 64th United States Attorney General from January 1961 to September 1964, a ...

, publisher, painter, author and founder of

MuscleMag International ''MuscleMag International'' or ''Musclemag'' was a Canadian bodybuilding, fitness and men's magazine, considered one of the top magazines in its field. It was established in Canada in 1974 by Robert Kennedy, an immigrant to Canada and leading expe ...

Bernard Meadows Bernard Meadows (19 February 1915 - 12 January 2005) was a British modernist sculptor. Meadows was Henry Moore's first assistant; then part of the Geometry of Fear school, a loose-knit group of British sculptors whose prominence was establishe ...

, modernist sculptor *

Alfred Munnings Sir Alfred James Munnings, (8 October 1878 – 17 July 1959) was known as one of England's finest painters of horses, and as an outspoken critic of Modernism. Engaged by Lord Beaverbrook's Canadian War Memorials Fund, he earned several prest ...

, artist and president of the Royal Academy *

Catherine Maude Nichols Catherine Maude Nichols (6 October 1847 – 30 January 1923) was a British painter and printmaker. She was born in Norwich, England, and is notable for being one of the first "lady fellows" of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, elected in 188 ...

, painter *

Peter Rodulfo Peter Rodulfo (born 1958) is a British artist and sculptor who spent much of his childhood travelling across India and Australia, before settling in Norwich, UK. He studied at the Norwich school of Art and Design (now Norwich University of the A ...

, artist and sculptor *

Colin Self Colin E Self (born 1941 in Rackheath, Norfolk) is an English Pop Artist, whose work has addressed the theme of Cold War politics. As a student at the Slade School of Fine Art from 1961 to 1963 Colin Self received encouragement for his drawings ...

, pop artist *

George Skipper George John Skipper (1856–1948) was a leading Norwich-based architect of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. Writer and poet, John Betjeman said of him "he is altogether remarkable and original. He was to Norwich what Gaudi was to Ba ...

, (attended for one year) architect * Tim Stoner, winner of

Beck's Futures Beck's Futures was a British art prize founded by London's Institute of Contemporary Arts and sponsored by Beck's beer given to contemporary artists. Prior to the establishment of the prize in 2000, Beck's had sponsored several exhibitions of con ...

Prize *

Horace Tuck Horace Tuck (1876–1951) was a prolific Norfolk artist and vice-principal of Norwich School of Art. Biography Mainly a painter of oil and watercolour landscapes of his native Norfolk in England, Horace Tuck also travelled to France (particular ...

, landscape artist *

Sonja Vectomov Sonja Vectomov (born 21 May 1979) is a Czech-Finnish electronic musician and composer who descends from a family rooted in the classical music world.Poncar, M."Sonja Vectomov právě vydala album ''Lamprophrenia''" Techno.cz, Sep 26, 2016. Vect ...

, musician/composer * Charles Mayes Wigg, landscape artist *

Gemma Correll Gemma Correll (born 3 February 1984) is a British cartoonist and illustrator who is known for her comics depicting personal, relatable anxieties and pugs. Early life and education Correll was born in Ipswich and attended the Norwich School of Art ...

, cartoonist

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control 1845 establishments in England Art schools in England Educational institutions established in 1845 Arts organizations established in 1845 Universities established in the 21st century Universities UK