At the outset of the 21st century, how do art schools and art departments go about graduating successful artists? More precisely, what kinds of knowledge must art students acquire before they can reliably produce something called art? Historically, the business of designing a suitable curriculum for artists has centred not simply on deciding what craft skills to teach, but also on how to go about balancing these against instruction in theory.

Fine art courses in Britain and America offer their students a range of practical and philosophical options for teaching and learning, but are these courses providing content appropriate to our times? As the role that art plays in western society becomes less easily defined and definable, what is the higher education sector educating student artists to do?

Is it still possible to identify such a thing as a curriculum for artists? If it is then how do we go about delivering it effectively? Just as importantly, what is it that artists themselves wish to learn at the outset of their careers, and what are the implications of all this for the teaching of art in secondary schools?

In order to begin answering at least some of these questions, we need to have in front of us an indication of the existing state of affairs. In 2001 neither the Department for Education and Skills in Britain nor the Department of Education in America were able to supply such information so the Ruskin School and New York Academy decided to ask those involved with the subject to talk about what and how they teach, and what they thought was important to the education of the students in their care.

A book that provides a synopsis of the findings from the British perspective was published in 2004. Contributors included Alain Ayers (Senior Lecturer, School of Art and Design, Nottingham Trent University and Secretary, National Association of Fine Art Education), Susan Brind (artist and tutor), Louisa Buck (art critic and writer), Lucy Chadwick (BFA student, University of Oxford), Clémentine Deliss (curator and writer), Dan Fox (Assistant Editor, Frieze), Christopher Frayling (Rector and Vice-Provost, Royal College of Art, London), Richard Grayson (artist and curator), Klaus Jung (Head of Fine Art, Glasgow School of Art), Janna Levin (astrophysicist), Antonia Payne (Associate Dean, School of Art and Design, University of Wolverhampton), Robert Read (secondary school art teacher), Ross Sinclair (artist), Nick Stanley (Head of Research, Birmingham Institute of Art), David Thorp (Curator, Henry Moore Foundation Contemporary Projects) and Roger Wilson (Head of College, Chelsea College of Art and Design and Chairman, Council for Higher Education in Art and Design).

Organised by the Ruskin School of Art and the New York Academy of Art and supported by funding from Arts Council England, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the International Council of the New York Academy of Art.