The Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg ("University of Fine Arts Hamburg"), also known as HFBK Hamburg, is an arts university in Hamburg, in northern Germany. It dates to 1767, when it was called the Hamburger Gewerbeschule; later it became known as Landeskunstschule Hamburg. The main building, in the Uhlenhorst quarter of Hamburg-Nord borough, was designed by architect Fritz Schumacher, and built between 1911 and 1913. In 1970, it was accredited as an artistic-scientific university.
The University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK) is an internationally oriented art university that combines artistic practice with academic research. Its interdisciplinary approach allows students to work across different artistic disciplines and develop experimental methods of practice and research.
The Fine Arts programme encompasses sculpture, painting, drawing and printmaking, photography, film, design, stage design and time-based media. It also includes the study of art theory and art history. Students have access to specialised workshops and facilities for working with a wide range of materials and techniques, including ceramics, metal, wood, textiles, photography and printmaking.
Alongside teaching, the HFBK promotes artistic research, public debate and collaboration with cultural institutions. Its Institute for Contemporary Art and Transfer (ICAT) organises exhibitions and events and facilitates exchanges between the university and the wider public. International cooperation is supported through initiatives such as the Art School Alliance and an artist-in-residence programme focusing on artistic research in the Global South and providing support for artists at risk.
In addition to its artistic-scientific doctorate (Dr. phil. in art.), the university launched the PhD in Art Practice in 2025, a doctoral programme centred on research-based artistic practice.
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International Student Profile
International exchange plays a central role at the HFBK Hamburg, where approximately 50% of students have an international background. The university supports international engagement through exchange programmes, collaborative projects, scholarships and artist-in-residence initiatives.
Its extensive network of art academies, museums, galleries, festivals and cultural organisations provides students and faculty with opportunities to work across cultural contexts, develop new perspectives and strengthen international artistic and academic connections.
History
The Hamburger Gewerbeschule ('Hamburg vocational school') was founded in 1767 by the Patriotische Gesellschaft ('patriotic society'). It was named the Staatliche Kunstgewerbeschule ('school of arts and crafts' or 'school of applied arts') in 1896, later the Landeskunstschule Hamburg ('state school of art').
Fritz Schumacher designed the main building especially for the art school. Located at Am Lerchenfeld 2 in Uhlenhorst, a quarter of Hamburg-Nord, it was built between 1911 and 1913. After World War II, it re-opened as the Landeskunstschule by Friedrich Ahlers-Hestermann, who had previously been a professor at the Kölner Werkschulen ('Cologne academy of fine arts'). He was succeeded by architect Gustav Hassenpflug, who changed the institution to the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. The school was accredited as a university in 1970.
In 1985, the auditorium hosted Robert Filliou and René Block’s Biennale des Friedens, accompanied by a concert featuring Nam June Paik, Henning Christiansen and Joseph Beuys. Adrienne Goehler served as the university’s first female president from 1989 to 2001, followed by renovations to the entrance area designed by Bernhard Winking in 1992–1993. Under Martin Köttering, who became president in 2002, the university appointed numerous female professors, including Jeanne Faust, Jutta Koether, Julia Lohmann, Michaela Melián and Marjetica Potrč.
In 2006, architecture studies moved to the newly established HafenCity University. Two years later, the university introduced an interdisciplinary Fine Arts programme offering bachelor’s and master’s degrees, alongside an artistic-scientific doctorate. The Art School Alliance was established in 2010, creating exchange opportunities with partner institutions in cities including Boston, Hangzhou, London, Paris, San Francisco and Vienna.
Restoration of the auditorium and Willy von Beckerath’s mural Die Ewige Welle began in 2011. In 2013, the university marked the centenary of the Fritz Schumacher building at Lerchenfeld and renovated its premises at Wartenau 15. A doctoral programme in artistic research followed in 2015, alongside library modernisation. In 2016, the canteen was redesigned and plans advanced for a new studio building.
The university celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2017. The following year, an artist-in-residence and guest lectureship programme was launched to support international artistic research, particularly in the Global South, and provide residencies for artists at risk.
Degree programmes
In the winter semester of 2008/09, HFBK introduced a consecutive Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programme in Fine Arts, replacing the previous Diplom programmes. The interdisciplinary programme covers all artistic and academic disciplines represented at HFBK. All students are enrolled in Fine Arts, while they can choose to combine several areas of study or focus on a single one. This allows students to develop an individual artistic and/or academic profile.
The Bachelor’s programme takes four years (eight semesters), followed by a two-year Master’s programme (four semesters). Since 2008, HFBK has also awarded the doctoral degree Dr. phil. in art (Doctor philosophiae in artibus). In January 2015, the graduate research programme Ästhetiken des Virtuellen (Aesthetics of the Virtual) began at HFBK. Since 2025, HFBK Hamburg has offered the doctoral programme PhD in Art Practice.
Areas of study
Bachelor’s Degree Programme in Fine Arts
Students can choose to combine different areas of study or focus on a single one.
Sculpture
Stage Design/Stage Space
Design
Film
Graphic Design/Type/Photography
Painting/Drawing
Theory and History
Time-Based Media
The architecture programme was transferred in 2006 to the newly established HafenCity University Hamburg, following the merger of all architecture programmes in Hamburg, including those at HFBK and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences.
PhD in Art Practice
Since 2025, HFBK Hamburg has offered the PhD in Art Practice, a doctoral programme focused on practice-based artistic research. The programme aims to develop and strengthen the production of aesthetic knowledge in and through the arts, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research carried out through artistic practice. Research is understood as an open-ended process of knowledge production.
The programme places particular emphasis on the methods of artistic knowledge production and their critical reflection. Doctoral projects combine artistic practice and theoretical research, with the aim of developing independent and critical knowledge within a specific field of the arts. The programme also seeks to strengthen the dialogue between artistic research and wider society.
The PhD can be pursued in several of HFBK's artistic fields, including Sculpture, Design, Film, Painting/Drawing, Stage Space, Time-Based Media, and Graphics/Photography. Research topics and methods are expected to engage with the contemporary and historical practices and theories of the respective field.The interdisciplinary programme prepares graduates to conduct independent artistic research in accordance with international standards and to take on teaching, coordinating and leadership roles in higher education and the art world. Doctoral candidates complete an 11-SWS programme of in-person courses, taught in both German and English, focusing on the foundations of artistic research and its presentation.
After five semesters of participation in the programme, doctoral candidates are eligible to take the examination, for which they submit a research-based artistic work. The detailed examination requirements are set out in HFBK's doctoral regulations.
Dr. phil. in art.
HFBK Hamburg awards the doctoral degree Dr. phil. in art. (philosophiae in artibus). In keeping with the university’s transdisciplinary approach, the programme supports doctoral research that contributes to the study of the arts from a range of perspectives, including analyses of artistic works and investigations into historical, social, media-related and cultural processes that have influenced artistic discourse or have themselves been shaped by it.
HFBK also supervises dissertations that explore concepts in art theory and philosophy through which artistic practices reflect on themselves and examine their own nature and understanding. In addition to conventional research-based doctorates, the university also supports doctoral projects with a substantial artistic component, provided that the relationship between the artistic work and the academic requirements of the doctorate is clearly defined.
Internationalisation
HFBK places a strong emphasis on the internationalisation of the university and its student body. In addition to appointing internationally renowned professors and academics with international experience, the university actively promotes international exchange among its students. Its large network of partner institutions within the European Union's Erasmus programme provides students with extensive opportunities for international mobility.
Since 2010, international exchange has also extended beyond Europe through the Art School Alliance (ASA), established in cooperation with the Alfred Toepfer Stiftung F.V.S.. The programme provides scholarships for up to 18 international art students each year, allowing them to live and work together for one semester in a former factory loft in Hamburg without paying rent or tuition fees. In return, up to 18 HFBK students each year spend a semester at one of the partner institutions without having to pay tuition fees there.
Current Art School Alliance partner institutions include:
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Boston
Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires
China Academy of Art, Hangzhou
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
Goldsmiths, University of London, Department of Art
California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles
Kindai University, Department of Design, Osaka
École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris
San Francisco Art Institute
Institute of Design, China Academy of Art, Shanghai
The mural Die ewige Welle by Willy von Beckerath
The mural Die ewige Welle ('The Eternal Wave') in the auditorium is considered the major work of Willy von Beckerath. Consisting of eight sections, it symbolically depicts the rise and fall of a cultural era. The mural was created between 1911 and 1918. Around 2009, it was restored in several stages to recover its original colour scheme.
To mark the centenary of the HFBK building in 2013, the ceiling and wall paintings in the auditorium were also uncovered and restored, while the ornate parquet floor was renovated. As a result, the auditorium can once again be experienced as a unified large-scale work of art.
Public events
Many events at HFBK are open to the public.[1] In addition to regular symposia, lectures, performance nights and film screenings, the university hosts three major annual exhibitions: the Graduate Exhibition, held in early July; the Annual Exhibition, presenting work produced by students during the academic year and held in February; and the Hiscox Art Prize Exhibition, which takes place in October to mark the beginning of the academic year.
Throughout the semester, exhibitions presented in HFBK’s gallery, which is curated by changing teams of students, as well as the regular Tuesday evening exhibition series Folgendes, provide opportunities for artistic exchange both within the university and with the wider public.
Protests (2007)
In July 2007, a scandal occurred when the university administration under Martin Köttering came under political pressure to expel students for having protested newly introduced tuition fees. Joerg Draeger and the Hamburg Senate, dominated by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) demanded expulsion of more than half of the art students for having taken part in a tuition boycott. The scandal gained nationwide press coverage. In June 2008, about 680 students were enrolled at HFBK Hamburg.
Teachers and students persecuted under the Nazi regime
Two Stolpersteine (memorial stones) embedded in the pavement in front of the main staircase of the University of Fine Arts Hamburg commemorate teachers who were persecuted under the Nazi regime. Friedrich Adler taught at the former School of Arts and Crafts from 1907 until he was forcibly retired in 1933. He was murdered at Auschwitz in 1942. Hugo Meier-Thur taught at the institution from 1910 until 1943, when he was murdered at Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp. A third Stolperstein commemorates former student Felix Nussbaum, who was murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944.
Notable alumni
This list includes alumni from University of Fine Arts of Hamburg, listed by last name alphabetical order.
Notable academic staff
This list includes present and past academic staff, listed by last name alphabetical order.
Friedrich Adler (1878–1942), design, metalwork
Joseph Beuys, guest professor in 1974
Max Bill (1908–1994), professor from 1967 to 1974
Bazon Brock, professor 1965–1976
Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, photography
Bernhard Blume, professor 1987–2011
Angela Bulloch, sculpture
John Burgan, guest professor 2002
Carl Otto Czeschka, professor 1907–1943
Thomas Demand, sculpture
Simon Denny, time-based media
Cyprien Gaillard, sculpture
Gotthard Graubner, professor 1969–
Rudolf Hausner, professor
Alfred Hrdlicka, professor 1973–1975
Friedensreich Hundertwasser, professor 1959
Jutta Koether, painting
Isaac Julien, professor 2006
Sigmar Polke, professor
Dieter Rams, professor 1981−1997