Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts
art college in Kingston, Jamaica
Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts, (formerly Jamaica School of Art and Crafts), is an art school in Kingston, Jamaica. In 1940, Edna Manley pioneered evening art classes at the Institute of Jamaica's Junior Centre but it was not until 1950 that the first formal arts school opened at the DaCosta Institute at 1 Central Avenue, Kingston Gardens. A number of leading Jamaican artists collaborated with Manley to open the first art school in Jamaica, including Albert Huie who became one of the tutors. 64 paying students enrolled in the first year and due to unexpected interest expanded the school at 11 North Street.
History
Barrington Watson established a four-year diploma curriculum to the teaching of art when the country gained independence in 1962. By 1964-65 the college had 86 full-time and 84 part-time students. After being renamed in 1967 to the Jamaica School of Art, in 1976 the school was incorporated into the Cultural Training Centre and moved to its new facilities at 1 Arthur Wint Drive, expanding its scope to include art, music, dance, and drama governed by the Institute of Jamaica under the Ministry of Culture.
In 1977, Edna Manley and her son, Jamaican Prime Minister the Most Honourable Michael Manley toured and dedicated the school.
In 1987, Edna Manley died and it was later officially designated a college in 1995, renamed as the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. In September 2004, the School of Visual Arts launched its degree program and today offers Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) and a Bachelor of Art Education (BAE) degrees and a BA degree course offered jointly with the University of the West Indies.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5340070. VIAF identifies the subject as 125675907. The Library of Congress control number is n2001016730. Authority coordinates are 17.998, -76.781. 6 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 1950, 1962 and 1964.
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This entry incorporates text from “Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.