Editor's introduction [Special issue: The Art School; questioning the studio]

This editorial sets out the context for a special edition of the Journal of Visual Arts Practice, which focuses on the place and role of UK art schools in the academy, and the purpose and form of the studio as a space for learning to make art. It offers a commentary on some of the key issues which have challenged fine art educators working in the UK over the last 45 years. These include the need for flexible physical spaces of making and institutional resource efficiencies, the particular nature of the artist educator, the nature of the professional and commercial worlds of fine art and the educational academy, and the realities of life as an artist and our society’s ideas of employment. It looks at some of the inherent tensions that exist in the push and pull of the relationship between undergraduate fine art courses and the institutions that house them, and how that institutional history continues to shape the character of fine art education in the UK. Publisher statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in the Journal of Visual Art Practice on 2nd September 2014, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14702029.2014.941568.