The Vidyavihar has treated education as an integrated process. Ever since its inception as a small hostel in 1912 and as a school in 1926, it has been trying to evolve a curriculum in which the academic, the emotional, the practical and the artistic find an organic blending. Along with crafts including wood work and metal engraving, music, drawing and painting found a place of importance in the educational program of the school. This enabled a number of pupils, to opt for a course in drawing and painting. At that time, the Vidyavihar had no fine arts college, but it had in Shri Rasiklal Parikh a talented art teacher who fulfilled the need of an arts school in his normal high school class room, and accepted a number of high school pupils as full time art students. This informal and adhoc arrangement, resulted, interestingly ,in giving Gujarat some of her outstanding artists. Encouraged by this experiment, the Management expanded the school into a full-fledged fine arts college. The foundation of the Kala MahaVidyalaya was laid in the year 1960 with the introduction of courses such as Applied Arts (Commercial Art) Sculptures, Ceramics etc. The Fine Arts College was infact, founded during the existence of the old Bombay State and the J.J.School of arts curriculum was the only recognised course in Arts Education. The syllabus, at the Fine Arts College therefore, was similar to that of the J.J.School of Arts. After the emergence of the Gujarat State, a number of changes and improvements have been made from time to time to meet the local art traditions. The Fine Arts College has in its faculty, some of our renowned as well as young and promising artists who contribute periodically to the cultural movements and trends in India through their artistic creations. The students live and work in an informal, enlightened, academic and professional atmosphere where self-reliance, self-direction and self-criticism condition their attitude to their own work in the school. This has created in the institution an atmosphere of mutual understanding and fraternity among the teachers and the taught.
