Who We Are

Ruth Prowse School of Art was founded in 1970 by artist Erik Laubscher. It opened during apartheid as one of the only non-discriminatory art schools in South Africa. The first students arrived in 1971.

That founding decision was an act of creative defiance, and it still shapes every studio today.

Defiance against who gets to be an artist. In 1970, that question was answered by race. Today it is answered by economics, geography and access to information. RPSA's response has not changed: talent and willingness decide who belongs here, not circumstance.

Defiance against how art should be taught. Most creative education delays practice until theory has been covered first. RPSA students start making in their first week. Technical skill and conceptual thinking are not taught in sequence. They are taught together, from day one.

Defiance against what creative education should produce. Rather than push students toward narrow specialisation, RPSA builds a broad creative foundation and trusts graduates to decide what to build on it. That foundation carries people into studio practice, design, jewellery, education, technology and places none of us have thought of yet.

RPSA sits on the Roodebloem Estate, a declared National Monument in Woodstock, one of Cape Town's most established creative districts. Students train across three accredited diploma programmes: Fine Art, Graphic Design and Jewellery Design, alongside a range of short and part-time courses. Every lecturer is a practising artist or designer who teaches from their own working practice.

RPSA's community is small enough that every mentor knows every student by name, by work, and by where they are in their development. It is open enough that students arrive from different ages, backgrounds and levels of experience, all with the same willingness to make something. The diversity of that community is part of what makes the creative environment richer, not a side note to it.