Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art

The Ruskin School of Art is the Department of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, England. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division. History The Ruskin School of Art grew out the Oxford School of Art, which was founded in 1865 and later became Oxford Brookes University. It was headed by Alexander Macdonald and housed in the University Galleries (subsequently the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology). In 1869 John Ruskin was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Art at Oxford. Critical of the teaching methods at the Oxford School of Art, he set out to found the Ruskin School of Drawing in 1871 in the same, but restructured, premises. Macdonald was retained as its Head and became, therefore, the first Ruskin Master until his death in 1921. The Slade School of Fine Art relocated to the Ruskin for the duration of the Second World War.