History/Founding of the Hartford Art School

“If I overlooked the Low Residency MFA in Illustration Program at the Hartford Art School, I would have missed the opportunity of a lifetime. The brilliant people in this program have picked me up and brushed the dust away. I'm now the artist I was born to be.”

Jon Sideriadis, Class of 2011
Rocky Hill, CT

The Hartford Art School has a rich history beginning in 1877 with its founding by a virtual who’s who of late 19th century Hartford women. These visionary individuals included the abolitionist writer, Harriet Beecher Stowe; Olivia Clemens, wife of Mark Twain; Elizabeth Colt, President of Colt Firearms Manufacture Company; Susan Warner, wife of the owner of the Hartford Courant and Mary Bushnell Cheney of Cheney Silk Mills. We believe the founders would be proud to know that the school they created in Hartford, over a century and a quarter ago, has today become one of the most highly regarded art schools in the country.

In 1957, the Hartford Art School merged with the Hartt School and Hillyer College to form the University of Hartford. Today, the University has seven Colleges, an undergraduate population of 4,600 students and a total enrollment of 7,000 students, including graduate and professional programs. Hartford Art School students have the best of both worlds. They are enrolled in a rigorous professional studio-based program that is an integral part of a thriving university environment. Our undergraduate BFA and graduate MFA students have access to a large university library, two galleries, university-wide lectures, expertise in other colleges, as well as outstanding music, theater and dance concerts, plus sports events held throughout the year.

The Renée Samuels Center embraces the creative possibilities of digital technology. The overall project provides discipline specific studios in Media Arts and Photography, and renovations of existing painting, drawing, printmaking, and foundation studios. The Center brings the Art School facilities in line with the outstanding quality of our faculty, students and programs, while addressing the collaborative prospects of digital technology. A two-story atrium at the heart of the Renée Samuels Center, the Koopman Commons, is designed for informal discussions and critiques, and a window created for exterior projections is shared by all art disciplines. The Renée Samuels Center encourages collaborative projects involving faculty in computer engineering, computer science and electronic music, as well as collaborations with artists, locally and internationally.