With a history of over 250 years, the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts is one of the oldest training institutions for fine arts in Europe. It was founded by the Wettins as the “Haupt-Kunst-Akademie” (Main Art Academy) in 1764. It was the successor to the “Zeichen- und Malerschule” (School for Drawing and Painters) which had been in existence since 1680. The academy built up a fine reputation soon after it was founded. In the 18th century, the internationally oriented faculty included the Frenchman Charles François Hutin, the Italians Bernardo Bellotto, Giuseppe Camerata, Giovanni Battista Casanova and Lorenzo Zucchi, as well as the Swiss Anton Graff and Adrian Zingg.
The fine arts academy and the art collections had significant appeal and therefore attracted around 1800 artists to Dresden, among whom were Caspar David Friedrich, Philipp Otto Runge and Georg Friedrich Kersting. The Norwegian landscape painter Johan Christian Clausen Dahl followed in 1818. The extensive influence of the romantic painter and etcher Ludwig Richter was very significant. He studied at the academy and then taught there from 1836.
Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel founded the Dresdner Bildhauerschule (Dresden School of Sculpture), which was highly regarded in the 19th century. The Architecture department with Gottfried Semper, who had been appointed in 1834, also had great appeal.
As in many other European art academies, development in the second half of the nineteenth century led to an academic consolidation and solidification in this academy too. The appointment of the impressionist Gotthardt Kuehl in 1895 was said to have finally brought about a change. Within just a few years, the look and feel of the academy changed almost completely. With professors Otto Gussmann, Carl Bantzer, Eugen Bracht, Robert Sterl, Ferdinand Dorsch and students such as Max Pechstein, Kurt Schwitters, George Grosz, Conrad Felixmüller and Otto Dix, the academy gained a new vibrancy. The appointment of Oskar Kokoschka and Otto Dix further enhanced the reputation of the academy in the 1920s.
