Silpakorn University is presently under the supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation and was originally established as the School of Fine Arts under the Fine Arts Department in 1933. Primarily, the school had offered the only studying programs in Painting and Sculpture by waiving tuition fees for the government officers and the students. Its inception and development owed much to an almost lifetime devotion of Professor Silpa Bhirasri, an Italian sculptor (previously called Professor Corrado Feroci) who was commissioned during the reign of King Rama VI to work in the Fine Arts Department. He subsequently enlarged the classes to include greater members of the interested public before taking his initiative in setting up the School of Fine Arts.

The School gradually developed and was officially accorded a new status and named, Silpakorn University, on 12 October 1943. In 1966, Silpakorn University had an educational policy to diversify the main areas of the four faculties into sub-specializations to respond to the development of its more academic interests and activities. However, the university underwent a limited physical expansion in Wang Tha Phra. Hence, a new campus, Sanam Chandra Palace Campus, was later established in Nakhon Pathom Province in the former residential compound of King Rama VI. Silpakorn University also extends the educational capacity through establishing a new campus in Phetchaburi Province for promoting the higher education in the western provinces of Thailand since 1997 and the new campus was named “Phetchaburi Information Technology Campus”.