Shaping the Curriculum

Letter to Pollak, dated 27 November 1928, in which Dr. Hibbs expresses his refusal to allow the use of nude models in class.

This photograph of a life class at RPI in the 1950s shows that, eventually, Miss Pollak succeeded in her appeal for the educational use of nude models in advanced art classes.
See Pollak's An Art School: Some Reminiscences and Oral History interview, both on the previous page, for more detailed (and rather amusing) accounts of the School's gradual acceptance of nude models.
When Pollak wrote Part I of An Art School in 1948, the School of the Arts was made up of 18 instructors and 500 students, and it encompassed the departments of Commercial Art, Fashion Design, Crafts, Dramatic Art, Interior Decorating, and Fine Arts—each with its own department head. By 1968, the school had more than doubled in size with over 1,100 students, 85 faculty members, and greater opportunities for specialization within each department. Since then, VCUarts has only continued to flourish.
The Art Foundation Program remains an important component of VCUarts today, currently serving as a prerequisite for admittance into all of the school's fine art and design departments.
-Theresa Pollak, An Art School: Some Reminiscences