The former principals of CAFA include Xu Beihong, Jiang Feng, Wu Zuoren, Gu Yuan, Jin Shangyi, Pan Gongkai, and Fan Di'an.

Its museum of fine arts boasts precious collections, including more than 2,000 Chinese scroll paintings from the Ming dynasty.

The new six-floor museum has several notable collections, including over 2,000 historic Chinese scroll paintings from the Ming Dynasty.

[citation needed] The school drew media attention during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 when the students created a large statue called the Goddess of Democracy.

Since the incorporation of the foundation of the Academy in 1950 it has contained Chinese painting, oil painting, print, sculpture and folk art such as New Year picture, embroidery and minority ethnic costume and objects, along with Chinese relics of bronze, pottery, engravings and rubbings.

The museum opened in September 2008, together with the collection warehouse, permanent and temporary exhibition halls, as well as supporting facilities including artist studios, lecture and conference rooms and cafeteria and bookstore.

As one of the largest professional libraries in China it has 360,000 books and paintings of various kinds, whose special collection includes woodblock New Year pictures, string-bound ancient books with illustrations, rubbings from stone-engraved portraits of Han Dynasty, tablets of various dynasties and the first-hand copies from engraved seals, etc.