Using salicylaldehyde and 4-aminophenyl ethanone as raw material, a Schiff base derivative 4-(2-hydroxybenzylideneamino)phenyl ethanone was synthesized by the solid phase reaction method at room temperature. The structure of the product was characterized by elemental analysis and 1HNMR. The UV spectra, fluorescence emission spectra and fluorescence quantum yield of the title Schiff base derivative were investigated. The results showed that this Schiff base displayed superior fluorescence property. The ground state configuration of the title Schiff base was optimized by density functional theory (DFT) method at the B3LYP/6-311G level. After vibrational analysis, there is no imaginary frequency, which indicates that the structure is stable. Then the ground state configuration was optimized to the excited state configuration by the method of single excited interactions CIS. Based on the optimized structure for the ground state and excited state time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations were carried out at the B3LYP/6-31G level to predict the absorption spectra and the fluorescence spectra. The results show that the computed spectra were comparable with the spectra from the experiments. The relationship between the molecular structure and the fluorescence property of 4-(2-hydroxybenzylideneamino)phenyl ethanone was also discussed. The results obtained may provide some theoretical guidance for the design of new fluorescence compounds.