Nanjing college of art (working University of the Arts) hereinafter referred to as "the art", was born in 1912, the country's largest comprehensive art college, is China's independent organizational system founded the earliest and lasted to today's higher art education, culture and tourism of the People's Republic of China and jiangsu province people's government to build, Arts comprehensive strength ranking first in the country, Included in the national construction high-level university professional graduate program, the national school art education advanced unit, the national personnel training mode innovation experimental area, the national college students' innovative entrepreneurial training program, national characteristic professional construction of colleges and universities, is the only one with China art level under all five disciplines doctoral and post-doctoral mobile stations of national key university. Nanyi gave birth to the earliest academic system of art in China and created the earliest university disciplines of fine arts, music, dance, theory and drama in China.

The predecessor of nanjing academy of arts was the Shanghai academy of fine arts founded by Mr. Liu haisu, the founder of Chinese fine arts education, in 1912 with his friends. In 1930, it was renamed Shanghai academy of fine arts. In 1922, Mr. Yan wenliang founded suzhou academy of fine arts. 1952 the department of fine arts and music of shandong university merged into east China art college, located in wuxi, jiangsu province. In 1958, the school moved to nanjing, and in 1959, it was named nanjing art institute.

According to the official website of the university in July 2019, the university is located in the main urban area of nanjing, covering an area of more than 700 mu with a floor space of 300,000 square meters. The total number of students is over 11,000. There are 14 secondary schools and 38 undergraduate programs. There are 1030 teaching staff, nearly 700 full-time teachers; It has 5 master's degree authorization centers in first-level disciplines, 1 master's degree authorization category (including 6 professional fields), 5 doctoral degree authorization centers in first-level disciplines, and 5 post-doctoral research stations.