Rhode Island School of Design history

The Centennial Women were a group formed to raise funds for a separate Women's Pavilion showcasing women's work at the 1876 Centennial Exposition.

The Rhode Island General Assembly ratified “An Act to Incorporate the Rhode Island School of Design” on March 22, 1877. “For the purpose of aiding in the cultivation of the arts of design.” Over the next 129 years, the following original by-laws set forth these following primary objectives:

Founded in 1878, the RISD Library is one of the oldest independent art college libraries in the country.

Like his successor in this role, he also served as governor of Rhode Island for a term (1888-89), which overlapped with his position at RISD. In addition, Taft served as a director of the Rhode Island Hospital Trust during this period in his life.

The first public galleries opened in 1893.

Metcalf directed the school until her death in 1895.

In honor of their father, she and her brothers Stephen and Jesse created the Jesse Metcalf Memorial Fund in 1900 to support the acquisition of works of art for the RISD Museum.

In pouring her time, energy, vision and funds into running the institution and ensuring its survival, Metcalf was joined by her daughter Eliza Radeke, who from 1913–31 was the first woman to serve as RISD's president.

Poland later served as a director of the Providence Art Club, RISD's neighbor on College Hill, and assumed the presidency at RISD for 11 years while continuing to teach art history at Brown until his retirement in 1915.

In 1920 Gorky emigrated to the United States, where he rejoined his sister in Watertown, Massachusetts, and assumed the pseudonym by which he became known.

An avid and eclectic collector, Radeke worked closely with artists, dealers and museum directors to develop the RISD Museum's extensive collection and funded the construction of the gallery that connects Pendleton House to the 1926 museum building named in her honor.

Her daughter, Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, then took over until her own death in 1931.

Gorky remained stylistically unable to move beyond the work of his mentors until about 1939, when he met the Chilean Surrealist painter Roberto Matta.

In such works as The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb (1944) and How My Mother’s Embroidered Apron Unfolds in My Life (1944), biomorphic forms that suggest plants or human viscera float over an indeterminate background of melting colours.

He oversaw Design for a Decade, a capital campaign to fund the construction of the Waterman Street dorms (now known as the Quad) and the Metcalf Refectory (The Met) in 1959.

RISD’s glass program began in 1966, shortly after ceramicist Norman Schulman became head of the ceramics program.

Once he announced his resignation in November 1967, he left RISD at the end of the following July, continuing a successful career in government and higher education.

During his brief tenure as interim president, RISD launched its first Wintersession in January 1969 and began offering the intensive six-week summer programs now known as the Pre-College and Summer Studies programs.

James Carpenter and Dale Chihuly at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Maine, 1971.

Glass Forest was exhibited in different configurations both at the RISD Museum and the Museum Bellerive in Zurich in 1972.

Maiya and Saarin Keck, daughters of artist Mary Shaffer, in the RISD Glass Hot Shop, 1973.

James Carpenter and Dale Chihuly, Corning Wall, made beginning at Pilchuck Glass School and later at the Rhode Island School of Design with the assistance of Darrah Cole, Kate Elliott, Phil Hastings and Barbara Vaessen, 1974.

Kate Elliott (left) laying out Blanket drawings for Dale Chihuly with Kevin Gleason in background, RISD, 1975.

Michael Glancy as a student at RISD, 1976.

Kate Elliott at RISD’s sculpture department, 1977.

Hank Murta Adams (BFA 1978) was a designer for Blenko Glass Company and creative director at Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center.

Howard Ben Tré (left) casting a piece at RISD with Willie Dexter, 1979.

Howard Ben Tré talks about Providence and discusses architectural geometry and the use of copper in his work in an interview with Paul Hollister from 1980.

Paul Hollister talks to Steven Weinberg about a piece he admires in a 1981 interview.

Hall maintained a painting studio at her farm in Lyme, CT and frequently exhibited her paintings at the Betty Parsons Gallery in NYC, where she became a partner after resigning from RISD in 1983.

Visiting glass artist Richard Marquis with Jack Wax (left foreground) and then-RISD Glass Department head Bruce Chao (background, standing, left of window), RISD, 1984.

James Carpenter discusses historic, nature-based lampwork with Paul Hollister and gives Hollister a book he illustrated on herbs in a circa 1991 interview.

During her tenure she greatly expanded inclusion, equity and access across all areas of the institution, and in 2017 initiated and oversaw the launch of RISD’s first Social Equity and Inclusion Action Plan.

He arrived at RISD in 2018, where he continues to serve as senior vice president of finance and administration.

After the outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent closure of the RISD campus in March 2020, RISD suggested a future of a hybrid of classes online and in-person.