College of Visual Arts

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**College of Visual Arts**
Established	1924
Type	Private
President	Joe Culligan
Dean	Ann Ledy
Faculty	57
Students	220
Location	St. Paul, MN,, USA
Address	344 Summit Avenue St. Paul, MN 55102
Telephone	800.224.1536
Campus	urban
Website	www.cva.edu

The College of Visual Arts (CVA) is a private, accredited, four-year college of art and design offering Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degrees in communication design, illustration, photography, fine arts, and visual studies. Founded in 1924, the college is located in a historic, urban residential area of St. Paul, Minnesota. The school is fully accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.

CVA began as one of the first learning environments in the Twin Cities specifically designed to ignite the creativity of artists and designers. CVA is one of a handful of art and design colleges in the U.S. that provides an arts education steeped in the liberal arts. With an enrollment of approximately 220 students and a faculty of 57, CVA offers a low student-teacher ratio. The College is one of only two private art and design colleges in Minnesota.

[edit] History

In 1924, Mills College of Art and Advertising opened in downtown St. Paul. It was a two-year school, operating on a commercial basis, that offered the very basics in copywriting, drawing and advertising. In 1948, Lowell Bobleter, a prominent St. Paul artist and educator, and then Chair of the Fine Arts Department at Hamline University, left his position and purchased Mills College. Bobleter a nationally known print artist, had a vision of developing an art school that would offer students a more comprehensive and progressive program. This post-war period, when thousands of students were looking for opportunities to use the G.I. Bill, was well-suited to the development and expansion of small schools. Bobleter’s curriculum was based on the Bauhaus: an integrated program including both fine and applied arts, with general courses in the humanities, natural sciences and aesthetics. Bobleter died in 1973, his prints are in permanent collections from the Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian Institution to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

[edit] Campus

CVA has five buildings: the historic mansion on Summit Avenue, which houses administration, classrooms, computer labs, sculpture and printmaking studios; the CVA Gallery at Selby and Western Avenues, the Library on Dayton, the Photo Studio on Dayton and drawing / painting studios at Selby and Grotto Avenues.