About Us

Sir J.J. School of Art is one of the pioneering institutes of fine art education in India, since its establishment in 1878 in the current Campus, with generous donation of Jamshetji Jijibhoy, under the British administration. The School today stands in the heritage building with departments of drawing and painting, sculpture and modelling, mural, portraiture, print making, arts and crafts including ceramics, interior decoration, metal work and textiles; and teachers training with art teachers’ diploma, Art Masters and Diploma in Painting Education. The college has undergraduate and post graduate programs with BFA and MFA degrees conferred to the students.

Sir J.J. School of Art began in 1857 with elementary drawing and design classes at Elphinstone institute. With the initial aim of imparting European academic art knowledge in the sub-continent, the college developed with the establishment of art and craft departments with rich diversity of culture in India as the resource point. Later in 1865, with arrival of Mr. Lockwood Kipling, Mr. Higgins and Mr. Griffiths, a school of Architecture, Class for teacher of Art and Craft and School of Decorative design were founded, as students were trained for great activities. This year also saw the school shifting from Elphinstone to its current campus in Bombay Esplanade, as the building began to be structured. While Mr. Kipling initiated crafts development with the arts and crafts movement, Mr. Griffiths encouraged a project of reproduction of Ajanta Murals. This period saw the emergence of artists like Pestonji Bomanji, Pithawala, M.V. Dhurandhar. By 1890, the school of taken over by the Education Department of Government of Bombay, accepting the significance of Indian art and crafts as part of culture rather than just technical education and industry. By 1891, Lord Reay (then Governor of Bombay) brought about the erection of Applied Art Section known as the Reay Art Workshops, which today encompass the Arts and Crafts Department. Thus, five distinct departments of Drawing and Painting, Sculpture and Modelling, Architecture, Reay Art Workshop for Art and Crafts and Applied Arts were brought under one roof of Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay.

Sir J.J. School of Art began in 1857 with elementary drawing and design classes at Elphinstone institute. With the initial aim of imparting European academic art knowledge in the sub-continent, the college developed with the establishment of art and craft departments with rich diversity of culture in India as the resource point. Later in 1865, with arrival of Mr. Lockwood Kipling, Mr. Higgins and Mr. Griffiths, a school of Architecture, Class for teacher of Art and Craft and School of Decorative design were founded, as students were trained for great activities. This year also saw the school shifting from Elphinstone to its current campus in Bombay Esplanade, as the building began to be structured. While Mr. Kipling initiated crafts development with the arts and crafts movement, Mr. Griffiths encouraged a project of reproduction of Ajanta Murals. This period saw the emergence of artists like Pestonji Bomanji, Pithawala, M.V. Dhurandhar. By 1890, the school of taken over by the Education Department of Government of Bombay, accepting the significance of Indian art and crafts as part of culture rather than just technical education and industry. By 1891, Lord Reay (then Governor of Bombay) brought about the erection of Applied Art Section known as the Reay Art Workshops, which today encompass the Arts and Crafts Department. Thus, five distinct departments of Drawing and Painting, Sculpture and Modelling, Architecture, Reay Art Workshop for Art and Crafts and Applied Arts were brought under one roof of Sir J.J. School of Art, Bombay.

The Art and Crafts Department of Sir J.J. School of Art works in the Reay Art Workshop across the main building of the college with four departments of Metal, Textile, Ceramic and Interior Decoration. In 1889 the Indian Art and Craft were added to the Sir J.J. School of Art in Reay Workshop after years of collection of local crafts in the Art and Craft Museum established in 1881. It is the irony of situation that the workshops were named after Governor of Province for some interest shown by him, rather than Sir J.J., family and himself donated lakhs of rupees for the same cause dearest to his heart. This is one of the few institutes having well equipped and technically advanced departments in terms of work as well as infrastructure in these fields under fine arts. The students are thus expected to go beyond creating products available and endeavour to more artistic creations. Thus since the beginning of the workshop upto 1991, Raobahadur Dhurandhar,  Mr. Taskar and Mr.Agasker from Painting section were appointed to teach drawingThe establishment of these was the industrial revolution and its impact on the arts and crafts. The art and crafts courses in J.J. are more practical in nature than academic. The idea was to retain Indian traditional techniques for production of artefacts and thus variety of articles that turned out was both functional and ornamental. 

Currently the Art Workshop not only trains the students with fine art basics with the crafts training but also focuses on art history and aesthetical knowledge imparted to the students. 

J.J. has given India some of its revolutionary artists making a global impact on art like Vasudev Gaitonde, Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, Jeram Patel, Prabhakar Barve, Prabhakar Kolte so on. Even in contemporary Indian art scenario, J.J. continues to contribute with artists like Suhas Bahulkar, Krishnamachari Bose, Atul Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Shilpa Gupta, Tushar Joag, and many more. In the changing face of representation in contemporary art around the world, J.J. holds a strong ground imparting knowledge in all the technical aspects of fine arts, with exposure to all the mediums under one roof. Having strong legacies of European as well as Indian art techniques, the students get the milieu of both in order to generate their own strong methodology of working adapting to the changing times. The school encourages extra-curricular activities and workshops along with the regular educational classes such that the students maintain equilibrium with the contemporary. Today the school has been able to hold its roots in art flourish with the branches reaching far and wide to every aspect of creative expressions.