The Academy of Art University, formerly Academy of Art College, is a privately owned for-profit art school in San Francisco, California, in the United States. It was founded as the Academy of Advertising Art by Richard S. Stephens in 1929. It has 283 full-time teachers and 1154 part-time teaching staff, and about 15,000 students; it claims to be the largest privately owned art and design school in the United States. The student body and alumni come from more than 112 countries.