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Alle School of Fine Arts & Design

The Addis Abäba Fine Arts School Yäýaddis Abäba sénä tébäb témhért bet was founded in 1958/59 by Allä Fälägä Sälam (b. 1929), who had studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago, USA. He be-came F.A.S.'s first Director. The objective of the School, which was under the Ministry of Edu-cation and Fine Arts, was to train professional artists and art teachers for the Ethiopian schools. There were only a few subjects offered at the very beginning: drawing, painting and a small number of academic subjects. Foreign artists of the staff provided the impetus for new means of expres-sion and expanded the school's curriculum.
Since the 1960s, Ethiopian artists increasingly have worked as instructors, several of whom had graduated from the Fine Arts School and went abroad for further studies. The most important, who, however, never attended the F.A.S., were Gäbrä Kréstos Dästa and Alexander Boghos-sian, known as "Skunder" (Éskéndér). Gäbrä Kréstos was influenced by German Expression-ism while in Cologne (1958-61) and Skunder was exposed to Surrealism and the art and philosophy of Negritude while in Paris (1957-66). Both artists influenced a whole generation of modern Ethiopian artists.
After the Revolution of 1974, the School was placed under the control of the Ministry of Culture and Sports Affairs and Abdäl Rähman Särif (b. 1939) became the new Director. Education to diploma originally took five years, but after the Revolution, the curriculum was expanded and the entire diploma-course lasted only four years. The budding artist was not only expected to have talent and creativity, he had also to be class-con-scious in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism.
After 1991, after the takeover by the Ethio-pian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front, the school came under different administrative structures and in 1998 it was incorporated into the Addis Abäba University system. The curric-ulum is now designed to meet the requirements that would allow for its graduates to be awarded the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Art Education and the degree of Fine Arts, respectively. This has brought a change in name and the school is now called the Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design.

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