The International Society for Education Through Art is a non-governmental organization of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and was founded in the aftermath of World War II. 

At UNESCO’s first and second conferences, held in 1946 and 1947, resolutions were adopted to inquire into art education, and in 1948, Dr. Herbert Read (1893-1968) was appointed as chair of a “Committee of Experts” to look into this matter. In 1951, a seminar called The Visual Arts in General Education was the first visual arts congress with attendees from 20 countries. InSEA’s constitution was formally adopted in Paris in July 1954 with Edwin Ziegfeld as the first President. With changes to reflect the times, Read’s ideas continue to serve as the foundation of InSEA’s contemporary mission:

Education through art is a natural means of learning at all periods of the development of the individual, fostering values and disciplines essential for full intellectual, emotional and social development of human beings in a community;

Association on a worldwide basis of those concerned with education through art is necessary in order that they may share experiences, improve practices and strengthen the position of art in relation to all education;

International co-operation and the better understanding between peoples would be furthered by a more completely integrated design and permanent structure for the diffusion of beliefs and practices concerning education through art, so that the right of man to ‘freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts’ and to create beauty for himself in reciprocal relationship with his environment, would become a living reality.

Today’s InSEA has succeeded in establishing an international community dedicated to advocacy, networking and the advancement of research in art education using our website, Facebook and Skype, as well as regional and international congresses and journal publications. We have on-line and face-to-face meetings, virtual and on-site exhibitions of children’s art, research publications and symposia, and Internet portals to a vast range of teaching and learning resources often with access to museums and galleries world-wide.

John Steers (2006). InSEA: Past, Present and Future