HERTFORDSHIRE COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN
The School of Creative Arts began life in 1890 as the St Albans School of Art, but in 1906, following a report from Her Majesty’s Inspector of Schools which stated that the School had a 'sound curriculum', and 'well qualified staff' with 'good, careful, and painstaking teaching' the name had changed to the St Albans School of Art and Craft. The School originally ran the foundation national diploma and daytime and evening short courses for adults and children. In the early 1970s, art and design education began to see radical changes as independent regional art schools were brought into either the university or polytechnic management systems. Following this, in 1973 the courses the School of Art and Design offered were moved to a new, purpose-built school on Hatfield Road in St. Albans. It was subsequently known as Hertfordshire College of Art and Design, and its foundation course enjoyed a high level of regard as a feeder college to the BA circuit. Based on its outstanding reputation, during the 1980s the college proposed the development of a degree programme in Fine Art, which at that time was unique, as it was the only exclusively part-time Fine Art programme in the country to be validated by the Council for National Academic Awards. This successful programme led to the development of a full-time mode, which was validated in 1990. In 1993, the College of Art and Design made the decision to merge with Hatfield Polytechnic, the primary regional provider of higher education. The College of Art and Design then became the Faculty of Art and Design within the reconstituted polytechnic, which later became the University of Hertfordshire. Suffolk artists who exhibited at the University of Hertfordshire include Alex Ayliffe, Sean Hedges-Quinn and Stephanie Stow and at the Hertfordshire College of Art include Tony Casement, Niki Dennis and Leigh Driver.