California Institute of the Arts

The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California, that focuses on visual arts and architecture. It was founded in 1961 as the nation's first degree-granting institution of higher learning dedicated exclusively to students of the visual and performing arts. It was the first institution of higher learning in the United States to do so. Bachelor of Fine Arts, Master of Fine Arts, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees are offered by the university's six schools, which include Art and Critical Studies, Dance, Film & Video, Music, Theater, and Theater and Dance and Critical Studies.

A broad group of experts, including Nelbert Chouinard, Walt Disney, Lulu Von Hagen, and Thornton Ladd, were recruited to work at the school when it was initially envisioned by a number of philanthropists in the early 1960s. CalArts students collaborate in a workshop environment to create their own work, over which they maintain complete control and ownership of the intellectual property.

CalArts was created in 1961 as a result of a combination of the Chouinard Art Institute (founded in 1921) and the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music (founded in 1927). (founded 1883). Both of the previously existent organisations were experiencing financial problems, and the founder of the Art Institute, Nelbert Chouinard, was terminally sick at the time of his death. Chouinard and Lulu May Von Hagen, the head of the Conservatory, were close friends of Walt Disney's, and the two schools were where he found and taught many of the artists who would go on to work in his studio (including Mary Blair, Maurice Noble, and some of the Nine Old Men, among others). Due to Walt's death in 1966, the schools' instructional goal was preserved via a coordinated merger and development of the two institutions. This procedure was carried on after Walt's death in 1966. His brother Roy O. Disney, Nelbert Chouinard, Lulu May Von Hagen, and Thornton Ladd were all there to support him in this endeavour (Ladd & Kelsey, Architects).