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CIA History

Black and white class photo for the class of 2000.

Every year, CIA builds on to an internationally recognized heritage of excellence and innovation dating back to 1882.

Brent Kee Young is working in glass studio.

An old drawing room when CIA was the School for the Arts.

Celebrating 141 Years

In 1882, the school was chartered as the Western Reserve School of Design for Women. The school’s first name reflects the forward-thinking views of founder Sarah Kimball, who opened her home for the first class meetings, attended by just one teacher and one student. Open to male and female students alike, the Cleveland School of Art, as the school soon became known, blossomed under the influence of a dedicated and talented faculty, whose prize-winning art and award-winning commercial designs are known collectively, even today, as “the Cleveland School.”

A group of students are tightly packed in a small room at the Kelly residence. They are all drawing. The photo is black and white.

Over time, the school’s success prompted changes in facilities—from Mrs. Kimball’s sitting room to the attic of Old Cleveland City Hall, and then to the late Horace Kelley’s mansion on present-day East 55th Street. In 1905, CIA built a brick Italianate building in University Circle (razed as part of a 1960s site redevelopment), which boasted a grand exhibition gallery predating the Cleveland Museum of Art by a decade.

A wide shot of CIA's old Gund building in the winter.

In 1949, the school became officially known as the Cleveland Institute of Art, and in 1956, classes moved into its new building at 11141 East Boulevard (razed in 2018), named for George Gund, who served as CIA Board President for 24 years.

Joseph McCullough is standing in the old ford plant next to a painting stand.

In 1981, the College purchased a former Ford assembly plant, now listed on the National Register of Historical Places. Named the Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts after the late artist and CIA alum who served as CIA president for 33 years, the building was extensively renovated in 2010 for classroom and studio use.

A close up of the new gund building at night with someone walking in front of it.

CIA constructed a new George Gund Building, an academic and administrative building named for George Gund II. The building consists of an 80,000-square-foot expansion adjoined to the historic McCullough building by the soaring, sunlit Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Atrium. Construction was completed in late 2015.

CIA History

Celebrating 141 Years

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