The predecessor of the School of Art of NantongUniversity (School of Architectural) was the Fine Art Department of Nantong Normal Specialized School, which was founded in 1984, and the Art and Sports Department of Nantong School of Education, which was founded in 1980. In 1999, the two schools merged to establish NantongNormal School, and the Department of Art was founded at that time which has a history of more than 30 years. In the course of more than 30 years, it has gradually formed the cultural concept and personnel training mode of “major art”.

The school has 141 faculty members, including 122 full-time teachers, 16 professors, 52 associate professors, 25 doctors, 25 master tutors, 9 with overseas university degrees, and 1 member from Steering Committee of Art Theory of the Ministry of Education, 5 members of the Chinese Artists Association, 2 members of the Chinese Calligraphers Association, 6 members of the Chinese Musicians Association, 1 outstanding youth Chinese painter of Jiangsu Province, 2 talented persons for training of “333” Project in Jiangsu Province, “226” Project in Nantong City. The school also is equipped with multimedia classrooms, computer rooms, student studios, and sculpture studios, industrial design rooms, dyeing and weaving studios, art galleries, exhibition halls, piano rooms, performance halls and other relatively complete teaching facilities.

The School has first-level programs for master’s degreet. There are 10 undergraduate majors in fine arts (normal), fine arts, visual communication design, product design, industrial design, environmental design, animation, architecture, musicology, music performance and so on, and one Sino-foreign double bachelor programs of architectural major. the school  has1800 students and strives to cultivate excellent high-level professionals and postgraduates with both ability and integrity who generally were welcomed by enterprises and institutions. The employment rate has been maintained at more than 97%.

In recent years, the school has made great efforts to build an international exchange platform. It has cooperated with Università degli Studi di Firenze, Glyndwr University, Hsuan Chuang University, Conservatorio Di Musica Giuseppe Verdi – Torino, the Siena School of Music, Accademia del Lusso, California Baptist University, Ukrainian National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture, and Univerza v Ljubljani and send outstanding young teachers to study abroad, organize undergraduate and graduate students to visit Slovenia, Italy, Ukraine and other countries, expand students’ international perspective, and promote the cultivation of more competitive international professionals.

In recent years, the school has sponsored over 4 national projects, 12 provincial projects of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture, etc. and undertaken 35 provincial research projects and more than 40 university projects. Teachers wrote and published more than 20 monographs, participate in the compilation of 10 national textbooks, publish more than 30 picture albums, and nearly 300 academic papers. Dozens of teachers and students’ works were exhibited in the national exhibition hosted by the Ministry of Culture and the China Artists Association, nearly 300 art works were published and more than 50 works won awards at different provincial levels. They held more than 50 personal exhibitions and solo concert at the ChineseNationalArt   Museum, the National Gallery, Today Art     Museum and other institutions. Some of the works have been selected for international exchanges and have been collected by the ChineseNationalMuseum, the NationalArt  Museum, the JiangsuProvincial  Art Museum, etc. The environmental art design project organized by the school was praised by experts inside and outside the province.

School has always paid attention to the cultivation of students’ innovative ability and practical ability. In the past three years, students have won 71 national awards and 238 provincial (ministry) awards in various competitions.