Founded in 1921, the Chouinard Art Institute was a leading professional art school in Los Angeles until it was absorbed into CalArts. It was established by its namesake, artist and educator Nelbert Murphy Chouinard (1879–1969), for the training of both fine art practitioners and commercial artists. The school was located in the Westlake section of LA, just south of MacArthur Park.
By the 1930s, the motion picture industry was recruiting Chouinard alumni in increasing numbers for a wide variety of departments, from art direction to costume design to animation. Walt Disney in particular took an interest in the work being carried out at Chouinard, and many of the animators who worked on early Disney classics such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, and Bambi were Chouinardians. They included members of Disney’s fabled “Nine Old Men”. Animators also excelled at a number of other prominent studios, most notably Chuck Jones at Warner Bros. In time, Disney himself became a financial backer of the school.
In the 1950s and ‘60s, Chouinard became known as a progressive fine arts school and its graduates turned up at the forefront of the Light and Space and Finish Fetish movements (Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston). Others explored assemblage techniques (Wallace Berman, Llyn Foulkes, Noah Purifoy) or became early standard-bearers of photo-conceptualism (Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari).
In 1961, Walt Disney and his brother Roy O. Disney guided the merger of Chouinard with the L.A. Conservatory of Music to form California Institute of the Arts. Chouinard continued to operate at its Westlake location for the rest of decade until CalArts opened its doors in 1970.
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Chouinard alumni
John Baldessari: photo-conceptualist, founding CalArts faculty member
