It was founded on 28 February 1944 by the Brazilian painter Alberto da Veiga Guignard (1896-1962) on request of Juscelino Kubitschek, mayor of Belo Horizonte and later President of Brazil.

It merge with the Department of Architecture of the Institute of Fine Arts of Belo Horizonte in 1944 to form the Escola Guignard.

Guignard also benefited from its proximity to the Pampulha Project of the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer (1907-2012), a series of modernist buildings constructed in Minas Gerais in the early 1940s.

The architect Gustavo Penna, a native of Minas Gerais, designed the current distinctive buildings of the school in the early 1990s, and completed the works by 1994.

[4][5] Guignard is noted for training numerous Brazilian artists like Maria Helena Andrés (born 1922), Amilcar de Castro (1920–2002), Mary Vieira (1927–2001), Franz Weissmann (1911–2005), and Artur Silva (born 1976).