Queensland College of Art

The Queensland College of Art (QCA) is a specialist arts and design college located in South Bank, Brisbane, and Southport, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. It was founded in 1881 and is the oldest arts institution in Australia.

Current enrolment is approximately 1,000 in subjects including digital art and media, fine arts, animation, graphic, interior design and photojournalism. The College is part of Griffith University.

The beginnings of the Queensland College of Art are not clearly defined. A School of Arts was established in Brisbane's Queen Street in 1849, but while drawing may have been taught there, there does not appear to have been a formal curriculum.

In 1879, Joseph Augustine Clarke enlisted the School of Arts President to lobby the Queensland Colonial Government to offer formal drawing classes. An accomplished artist from England, Clarke had come to Australia via India, where he had taught topographical drawing at the Military Academy in Poona. In 1881, Clarke began conducting drawing classes from the Brisbane School of Arts, which was now situated in a refurbished Servants' Home in Ann Street.

The following year, a public meeting was held to establish a Technical School of Visual Art. The idea won public support and in 1884, classrooms and a lecture room were added to the Ann Street premises. A professional teacher, formal classes and purpose-built rooms came together to form a recognisable art school.

When Clarke died in 1890, the position of Art Master was awarded to Godfrey Rivers, a graduate of the Slade School in London and a painter of international repute.

In 1898, the Technical School of Visual Art was incorporated into the newly established Brisbane Central Technical College, creating its biggest department.

In 1908, the technical colleges that had sprung up around Brisbane were amalgamated into the Brisbane Central Technical College. This College was given new premises in George Street between the Parliament House and Old Government House.

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