The membership to the academy is on an electoral basis for the distinguished specialists of professional artistry: theater and film directors, composers, painters, conductors, actors etc.

In general, the foundation of academies in Ukraine is historically connected with the growth of the cultural level of Ukrainian society and with essential changes in the development of the education of artists.

From 1927 to 1928, on behalf of the government, the presidium of the Ukrainian Academy of Science formed a special committee headed by AS academician of Ukraine O. P. Novytskyy.

Afterwards, due to repressions of artistic intelligentsia, of which a number of art critics, for example F. L. Ernst, M. F. Bilyashyvskyy, D. M. Scherbakivskyy, M. O. Makarenko and others were subjected, the foundation of the academy was postponed.

In 1941 at the request of artistic intelligentsia the Ukrainian authorities resumed planning for the academy's foundation, but this time the Second World War was the obstacle.

Haphazard reorganization and eradication of the Ukrainian Art School in the years of repression destroyed a rich inheritance of traditions and ideas.