In summer 1953, Oskar Kokoschka founded the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Salzburg as a “School of Vision”. This summer academy of visual arts was the first in its kind in Europe and became an international meeting place for people of diverse origins, ages, and social backgrounds positioning itself as a counterpart to traditional national art academies. The history of the Salzburg International Summer Academy reflects the developments in art and academic teaching over the past 63 years.

After retracing the history of the Academy, Dr Hildegund Amanshauser will discuss its current institutional strategies with a specific focus on the ongoing project Global Academy?. She will address the challenges of the new global orientation, its impact on art education as well as the new forms of collaboration it may trigger.

Dr Hildegund Amanshauser (Austria) is an art historian, author and curator and since 2009, Director of the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, Austria. Previous appointments include professor of art history and theory in Muenster Westfalia, Germany and director of the Salzburg Kunstverein, Austria. She also worked as curator for the Secession Vienna and the Museum of Modern Art Vienna, Austria.

Amanshauser has published widely on modern and contemporary art and she is editor of The Word’s Finest Studio: 60 years of the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts, published by Jung und Jung Verlag, Salzburg and Vienna, 2013.