[6] Within the BFA and MFA degrees, students select a major from six artistic disciplines: ceramics, drawing, painting, photomedia, printmaking and sculpture.

[4] NAS has taught artists including Margaret Olley, Lyndon Dadswell, Guy Warren, John Olsen, Tim Storrier, Cressida Campbell, Fiona Hall, James Gleeson, Peter Atkins, Lucy Culliton, Karla Dickens, Juz Kitson, Guy Maestri, Mitch Cairns, Joan Ross and Natasha Walsh.

[14] In addition to its tertiary degrees, NAS has an extensive program of short courses and workshops taught by experienced artists that run on campus and online throughout the year, catering to students of all ages, backgrounds and levels of experience in the visual arts.

[16] The sandstone Cell Block Theatre on the NAS campus was originally D Wing of Darlinghurst Gaol[17] which held some of Sydney's most notorious female criminals including Kate Leigh.

NAS exhibitions are accompanied by scholarly catalogues and public programs including talks, workshops and symposia to foster the interpretation, understanding and appreciation of art.

[39] A People's Prize was awarded for the first time in 2021 to Joanna Gambotto for her work Hill End Interior 1 (Denningtons Cottage: Kim and Lino's), which pays tribute to the vital role the small NSW town of Hill End has played and continues to play in the Australian visual arts, attracting and inspiring generations of artists.

[47] The 1920s saw the development of NAS's distinctive studio model of teaching, offering its first five-year Diploma in Art in 1926 under Lecturer-in-Charge Samuel Rowe and the English sculptor G Rayner Hoff.

Renowned artists such as Colin Lanceley, Ann Thomson, Elisabeth Cummings, Peter Powditch, Ken Unsworth, Martin Sharp, Garry Shead, Janet Mansfield, Tim Storrier, and Vivienne Binns graduated from the Diploma Course.

[2] A much-diminished School of Art and Design remained at the Darlinghurst Gaol site as part of the Department of Technical and Further Education (TAFE), offering short certificate courses.

After more lobbying and activity by FoNAS and other NAS supporters, in 2009 the School moved out of DET management and became a fully independent tertiary education provider.

In 2020 NAS received a significant grant from the NSW State Government for restoration and upgrading of the campus's historic buildings and structures,[49] with the works being undertaken in 2021.

[45] Building began on the original Darlinghurst Gaol in 1822, with convicts hand-carving the sandstone blocks for the surrounding walls which stood 21 feet (6.5 metres) high when completed in 1824.

[50] Built in a distinctive panopticon design,[51] the gaol complex held prisoners from 1841 to 1914[51] including poet Henry Lawson;[52] newspaper editor J. F. Archibald;[53] murderer and artist Henry Louis Bertrand;[54] bushranger Captain Moonlite;[55] Aboriginal outlaw Jimmy Governor;[56] female bushranger Jessie Hickman;[57] Kate Leigh,[18] who became Sydney's famous razor gang madam; and Louisa Collins, the last woman to be hanged in NSW.