California Institute of the Arts, or "CalArts" as it is popularly known, ranks the highest at seventh on the U.S. College Rankings list of top art colleges for the Southern California region. CalArts is a private institution located in Valencia, a suburb of northern Los Angeles County. Established by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney, in 1961, CalArts is known for its focus on film and video, theater arts and the entertainment industry. The school operates the experimental REDCAT theater and art gallery in downtown Los Angeles.
The School of the Arts and Architecture at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), housed in the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Center on campus, is comprised of six degree-granting departments: Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design/Media Arts, Ethnomusicology, Music and World Arts and Cultures. The Department of Art, founded at the university in 1939, offers a bachelor's degree, a Master of Fine Arts degree and a Ph.D. degree in art and also features a summer art program for high school students.
Founded in 1930 in Los Angeles by Edward A. Adams, who worked in advertising, the Art Center College of Design taught art with a focus on advertising, publishing and industrial design to students during the Depression and to returning veterans after World War II, becoming an accredited four-year college in 1949. The Art Center College of Design offered one of the first programs specializing in automotive design. The college moved from Los Angeles to Pasadena, California, in 1976.
The Visual Arts Department at UC San Diego offers four undergraduate majors in Art History/Criticism, Media, Studio and Interdisciplinary Computing and the Arts, a Master of Fine Arts degree, and a Ph.D. degree. Ranked 15th in the U.S. College Rankings list for Southern California art schools, the visual arts school is located in the Mandeville Center on the UCSD campus in La Jolla, California, just north of San Diego. The University Art Gallery presents three exhibitions each year.
One of the venerable institutions in the Los Angeles art education world, Otis College of Art and Design -- formerly known as Otis Parsons-- was established in 1918 by Harrison Gray Otis, who also founded the "Los Angeles Times." The majority of the classes and studios are held at its Westchester campus north of the Los Angeles International Airport, with the fashion design department being located in the California Market Center in the heart of the Fashion District in downtown Los Angeles.