California College of the Arts History

California College of the Arts was founded in 1907 by Frederick Meyer to provide an education for artists and designers that would integrate both theory and practice in the arts. Meyer’s vision continues to the present day.

President Stephen Beal says, “CCA’s history is tied to the Arts and Crafts movement, a time when artists and designers were producing work that would address the social issues of the time and have a positive impact on the world. This spirit is still very much a part of the college today.”

Frederick Meyer and the Arts and Crafts Movement
The Arts and Crafts movement originated in Europe during the late 19th century in response to the industrial aesthetics of the machine age. Frederick Meyer was a cabinetmaker in his native Germany, and he was already involved in the movement when he came to live in the Bay Area in 1902. He established a cabinet shop and taught at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art.

The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed both his shop and the institute. At a meeting of the Arts and Crafts Society shortly after the disaster, he articulated his dream of a school that would fuse the practical and ideal goals of the artist.

School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts
In 1907 in Berkeley, Meyer founded the School of the California Guild of Arts and Crafts with $45 in cash, 43 students, three classrooms, and three teachers: himself, the designer Isabelle Percy West, and the artist Perham W. Nahl. Meyer’s wife, Laetitia, was the school secretary.

In 1922 Meyer bought the four-acre James Treadwell estate at Broadway and College Avenue in Oakland. Students, faculty, alumni, and the Meyer family all pitched in to transform the dilapidated buildings and grounds into a college campus. Meyer, a skilled horticulturist, did the landscaping, and some of his work is still in evidence today.

California College of Arts and Crafts
In 1936 the school was renamed the California College of Arts and Crafts. Meyer remained president until his retirement in 1944. Enrollment grew dramatically after World War II. New programs were added, such as Wood Design, Glass, Interior Architecture, and Film/TV; these, like all the school’s programs, would evolve in subsequent decades in response to new technologies and changes in the art world.

Noted Alumni and Faculty
CCA faculty and alumni have been on the forefront of almost every art movement of the last 50 years. Robert Arneson, Peter Voulkos, and Viola Frey helped instigate the ceramics revolution of the 1960s, which established that medium as a fine art. The photorealist movement of the 1970s is represented by current faculty member Jack Mendenhall and alumni Robert Bechtle and Richard McLean. Nathan Oliveira and Manuel Neri were leaders in the Bay Area Figurative art movement.

CCA faculty and alumni have also been prominent in Conceptual art (Dennis Oppenheim, David Ireland), minimalist sculpture (John McCracken), painting (Squeak Carnwath), and film (Wayne Wang). Wolfgang Lederer, Michael Vanderbyl, Lucille Tenazas, and Martin Venezky have had a major impact on contemporary graphic design.

Recent students and alumni have been featured in multiple Whitney Biennials and SFMOMA SECA Art Award exhibitions, and they regularly receive prestigious fellowships and residencies. One of CCA’s Architecture students was a finalist in the World Trade Center competition while she was still an undergraduate, and the college was recently awarded first prize in the Green Community: 2008–2009 International Student Design Competition issued by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).

Our students have won the Adobe Design Achievement Award and awards from the Art Directors Club, STEP Inside Design, the Type Directors Club, and I.D. magazine. They have been featured in the Milan Furniture Fair, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, and the International Home and Housewares Show. They won awards at the Adobe Reel Ideas Studio at the 2007 and 2008 Cannes Film Festivals. And they have won awards in the Microsoft Next-Gen and VH1/iFILM Show Us Your Junk competitions.

Recent Times
Today, with the additions of Animation, Industrial Design, Fashion Design, Writing and Literature, Visual Studies, and more, the college offers a total of 20 different undergraduate programs. There are also seven graduate programs, which include not only the well-respected Graduate Program in Fine Arts, but also the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice (inaugurated in 2003) and the MBA in Design Strategy (inaugurated in 2008), both of which are among the very first of their kind.

The Oakland campus witnessed much new construction after World War II, including Martinez Hall for painting and printmaking, the Treadwell Ceramic Arts Center, and Founder’s Hall, which houses the Meyer Library and Nahl Hall. Several gallery spaces on the Oakland campus host faculty and student exhibitions and reviews; these include the Oliver Art Center, the Irwin Student Center gallery, the Isabelle Percy West Gallery, and the North/South Galleries.

The Center for Art and Public Life, inaugurated in 2000, creates community partnerships and serves the Bay Area’s diverse populations. Its programming is woven across disciplines at CCA.

The college established a presence in San Francisco starting in the 1980s, using leased space for its architecture and design programs, and the tremendous growth of those departments inspired the establishment in 1996 of a permanent campus in the Potrero Hill neighborhood, which continues to grow. The 120,000-square-foot main building has won several awards for green design, and the Montgomery Building on the San Francisco campus—among the largest solar-heated facilities in Northern California—was designated as one of the country's top-10 green buildings by AIA COTE (American Institute of Architects, Committee on the Environment). (Learn more about the college's commitment to sustainable design and practice.)

In 1998 the college established the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, a forum for the discussion and presentation of leading-edge art and culture. Capp Street Project, the renowned artist residency program, became part of the Wattis Institute that same year.

California College of the Arts
In 2003, in recognition of the institution’s growth and the broadening of its focus and offerings, the college changed its name to California College of the Arts. Today, Frederick Meyer’s “practical art school” is an internationally respected institution, attracting students and faculty from around the world.