Like all old institutions, the National College of Arts, has a historical tradition. Much of its present tone was set long ago when it was known as the Mayo School of Arts. Gazetteers written about the city of Lahore in 1915 describe the work being done at the school as one of the cultural highlights of the urban center.
The Mayo School of Industrial Art was set up to commemorate Lord Mayo, the British Viceroy to India, assassinated in 1872. A teacher of painting and sculpture Lockwood Kipling, working then in Bombay in a Parsi School, was appointed its first Principal parallel to his charge of the Curator of the Lahore Museum.
The Museum and the School were conceived together. Funds were raised through a special levy throughout the Punjab province on the occasion of the Jubilee of the British Queen in 1887. The object was to provide an institution containing a museum, a library and a number of lecture rooms where instructional staff would teach indigenous crafts.
The Mayo School was intended to be a technical college in the fullness of time. Lockwood Kipling the curator Principal allowed the functions of the museum and the school to merge in a creative manner. Together with his more illustrious son, Rudyard Kipling, he planned and arranged the Museum in such a way that it reflected both the archeological and the traditional crafts heritage of the Punjab.
The flooding of the Punjab market with British manufactures from Manchester drove the local industry out of business by the turn of the century. Popular taste was weaned from its cultural roots, which resulted directly in the decline of art and craft. Nearly 40,000 workers in cotton and 900 weavers in Lahore were rendered jobless. Cotton printing being done in the city and once prized in such far-off places as Switzerland and Holland, was badly hit by the shoddy machine-made variants that came in from Manchester. Cottage industry in woolen and silk doth was virtually wiped out.
The Mayo School became a haven for representative professionals from all the industries thus affected. European designs in building and furniture and the rise of the furniture firms brought bad times for the Punjabi carpenter reputed one of the cleverest in the world. The vogue received by photography and printing produced a great demand for lithographers and the school set up a process department for the production of line, half tone and color blocks for illustrating purposes.
Lockwood Kipling turned his attention to the School more exclusively when it acquired its separate building in 1882 consisting of six rooms. Temporary additions were made to it in 1881 to house an exhibition of the Punjab Crafts. In 1891, these temporary structures were made permanent in accordance with a design prepared by the Principal.
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Founded |
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Fax |
92-42-9210500 |
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City |
Lahore |
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Email |
info@nca.edu.pk |
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92-42-9210599, 9210601 |
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Website |
http://www.nca.edu.pk/ |
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Address |
4-Shahrah-e-Qauid-e-Azam, Lahore |
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National College of Arts NCA
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Friendly Administration |
10 |
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1= Lowest 10 = Highest |
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