art history phd oxford

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DPhil in History of Art

University of oxford, different course options.

• Key information

Course Summary

Tuition fees, entry requirements, similar courses at different universities, key information data source : idp connect, qualification type.

PhD/DPhil - Doctor of Philosophy

Subject areas

Art History

Course type

About the course

The DPhil in History of Art is an advanced research degree, awarded on the basis of successful completion of an individual research thesis and an oral examination.

The Department of History of Art, which operates as part of the Faculty of History, offers research degrees in a broad range of fields within the discipline of art history and visual culture.

History of Art at the University of Oxford draws on a long and deep tradition of teaching and studying the subject. The core academic staff work on subjects from medieval European architecture to modern Chinese art. Over fifty associated academic staff (eg in Anthropology, Classics, History, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and the Ruskin School of Art) include teachers and researchers across the full global and historical range of art and visual culture. This offers students exciting possibilities to develop their own interests in art history and to receive supervision on a very wide range of topics.

The DPhil programme enables you to acquire the research skills necessary to complete a substantial piece of original research. You will work under the guidance of a supervisor who is a specialist in their subject. As part of your doctoral research, you will produce a thesis of not more than 100,000 words.

Current DPhil students are writing theses on a diverse range of topics, including the print-making techniques of the eighteenth-century British artist Alexander Cozens; the role played by the political economy of silver in the invention of photography; the elite tombs of late Medieval Castile; the visual and material culture of pilgrimage in the Este courts of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italy; the relationship of colour and race in late nineteenth-century French painting; the erotic in Venetian popular prints made between 1550 and 1620; the work of the twentieth-century Italian photographer Ugo Mulas; illustrated books about China published in Edo Japan; the visual culture of the British railway system in Western Anatolia; the pictorial work of the nineteenth-century English polymath John Herschel; and the function and agency of religious images in late-medieval England.

All DPhil students are expected to attend and to contribute to the wide range of research seminars, conferences and workshops organised by the department and faculty. You also have access to specialist training courses offered by the Bodleian Libraries and IT Services.

Further information about studying part time

The faculty is able to offer the programme in full-time as well as part-time mode of attendance. Please note that any published statistics as regards acceptance rates are not an indication of applicants having a better chance of acceptance in part-time mode. All DPhil applications are assessed together and compared with each other, irrespective of the mode of study.

History of Art research degrees are not available by distance learning. Although there will be no requirement to reside in Oxford, part-time research students must attend the University on a regular basis in term-time: October and November, mid-January to mid-March, and late April to mid-June. Part-time students are required to attend seminars, skills training and supervision meetings in Oxford. The dates of attendance will be determined by mutual agreement with your supervisor.

We cannot sponsor student visas for part-time study as the study patterns are not compatible with Home Office regulations on attendance monitoring. However, other options may be available and you should contact the admissions office to discuss.

UK fees Course fees for UK students

For this course (per year)

International fees Course fees for EU and international students

As a minimum, applicants should hold or be predicted to achieve the equivalent of the following UK qualifications or their equivalent: a master's degree with distinction or a high pass; and a first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours in any subject. If you plan to apply without a prior degree in history or history of art you should ensure that you link your proposed thesis topic with your previous expertise when you present it in your application. You should also show that you have already done a considerable amount of background research into the topic. Your submitted written work should demonstrate that you have the necessary skills for art historical research and writing. Professional experience in research, such as holding a research assistantship with an individual researcher or on a research project, may be an appropriate substitute for a master's degree. For applicants with a degree from the USA, the minimum GPA sought is 3.75 out of 4.0.

History of Art MPhil/PhD

Ucl (university college london), history of art ma, human geography mphil/phd, ma history of art and archaeology, soas university of london, ma history of art and architecture of the islamic middle east and intensive language (arabic).

Study the history of art online

Short online courses in the history of art

Our short online courses in the history of art  include live-time weekly classes, day schools, lecture series and flexible online courses.

Credit earned from some of these courses is transferable towards our Certificate of Higher Education  – a part-time undergraduate programme in which you study a main subject discipline, but also undertake study in other academic subjects.

View all online courses in the history of art .

Upcoming courses

Western architecture: the modern era (online).

• Wed 18 Sep 2024 – 29 Nov 2024

Learning to Look at Western Architecture (Online)

• Wed 25 Sep 2024 – 06 Dec 2024

The Culture of the English Country House (Online)

Around the mediterranean in ten objects.

• Mon 18 Sep 2023 – 27 Nov 2023
• 11 meetings
• 2:00 – 3:00pm

The History of Museums: From the Cabinet of Curiosities to the Contemporary

• Tue 19 Sep 2023 – 28 Nov 2023
• 4:30 – 5:30pm

Part-time qualifications:

Undergraduate Certificate in the History of Art

Undergraduate diploma in the history of art, mst in the history of design, mst in literature and arts (mla), history of art, further information.

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Art history is a vast discipline, geographically, historically, and intellectually. In its initial centuries, art history dealt with Western art, but the boundaries of the field have since expanded. The canon continues to be redefined as histories of art in regions that had previously been ignored are brought into the mainstream. Traditional emphases on European art have been reduced, as the discipline reaches world-wide dimensions in which connections as much as differences have increasingly come into focus. Originating as a study much informed by ancient art, and then by the art of the Renaissance, the historical dimension of the discipline has also continuously advanced with time. More and more works and types of objects are made throughout the world, and art historians’ interests have increasingly shifted to more recent art. In the past half century art historians have also engaged more and more with questions of theory, method, and the history of the discipline. New approaches, often borrowed from other fields, have proliferated.

As a result of all this flux and ferment, it has become progressively more difficult to grasp the literature of the field, and to gain an orientation to current and perennial problems. Oxford Bibliographies in Art History responds to these needs and offers a trustworthy pathway through the thicket of information overload. Whether an expert in contemporary European art needs to read up on the art of ancient China for a book project or an undergraduate student needs to start a research paper on iconography in Renaissance art, Oxford Bibliographies in Art History will provide a trusted source of selective bibliographic guidance.

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We want to hear from you. Oxford Bibliographies is a partnership between the publisher and the academic community, and we invite your questions about the content. Please feel welcome to email Adam Frese , our development editor, with comments, suggestions, or questions.

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A doctoral degree at the Department of History of Art offers the opportunity for independent research under the supervision of an expert departmental member of staff.  The Department of History of Art has the expertise and welcomes candidates in many areas including medieval, Renaissance and early modern, eighteenth and nineteenth century, modern and contemporary art, and historiography and methodology.

As well as the research and skills training programme offered by the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, candidates have the opportunity to attend suitable courses in associated skills, such as modern languages, palaeography, the use of bibliographic and other databases, and computer skills.

The examination constitutes the oral examination of a thesis not exceeding 80,000 words for the PhD on a subject approved by the Degree Committee for the Faculty.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the programme, candidates will have become leading academic authorities in their chosen field.  They will have acquired excellent skills, experience and knowledge suited to undertaking post-doctoral work (research and/or teaching) or for moving into another related profession outside the academy.

To continue to read for the PhD following the MPhil in History of Art & Architecture, students must achieve an overall total score of at least 70%.  Continuation is also subject to the approval of the proposed research proposal, and the availability and willingness of an appropriate supervisor.

The Postgraduate Virtual Open Day usually takes place at the end of October. It’s a great opportunity to ask questions to admissions staff and academics, explore the Colleges virtually, and to find out more about courses, the application process and funding opportunities. Visit the  Postgraduate Open Day  page for more details.

See further the  Postgraduate Admissions Events  pages for other events relating to Postgraduate study, including study fairs, visits and international events.

Key Information

3-4 years full-time, 4-7 years part-time, study mode : research, doctor of philosophy, department of history of art, course - related enquiries, application - related enquiries, course on department website, dates and deadlines:, michaelmas 2024.

Some courses can close early. See the Deadlines page for guidance on when to apply.

Funding Deadlines

These deadlines apply to applications for courses starting in Michaelmas 2024, Lent 2025 and Easter 2025.

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• History of Art and Architecture MPhil
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• Education (Critical Approaches to Children's Literature) PGCE entry only MEd
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Article Contents

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Exhibitions Beyond Boundaries: Transnational Exchanges through Art, Architecture, and Design 1945-1985

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Jasna Galjer, Exhibitions Beyond Boundaries: Transnational Exchanges through Art, Architecture, and Design 1945-1985, Journal of Design History , Volume 37, Issue 1, March 2024, Pages 97–98, https://doi.org/10.1093/jdh/epad024

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As recent studies have shown, the history of exhibitions expands far beyond a disciplinary perspective of architectural, design, or cultural history. 1 While scholarship on the history of international exhibitions between the 1850s and 1980s in the West is flourishing, the network of agents and institutions that has generated the consolidation of the global communication system still needs to be examined. 2 This edited volume, entitled Exhibitions Beyond Boundaries: Transnational Exchanges through Art, Architecture, and Design 1945-1985 , edited by Harriet Atkinson, Verity Clarkson, and Sarah A. Lichtman, is a major contribution to a research field that has remained on the margins of mainstream scholarship.

In his important foreword, Jonathan M. Woodham highlights this essential book as a disciplinary turn within the historiography of exhibitions. Scholars have long recognized the possibilities and problems which lie in globalizing design history. Almost two decades ago, Christopher Bailey argued that “the need to develop a genuinely global field of enquiry has moved beyond being a challenge to becoming a duty.” 3 Daniel Huppatz continues this trend, proposing design historians both “globalize history and historicize globalization,” arguing that “there needs to be an understanding of the multi-directional nature of global flows - may require developing both new terms and new structures for analysis.” 4 Applying the interdisciplinary approaches of design, art, and architectural history, but also social, economic, and political history, as well as cultural studies and curatorial studies, the book focuses on the “soft power” of particular types of persuasion mediatized by exhibitions.

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History Courses

As the History Faculty at Oxford is large, we have tutors with a wide-range of specialist areas, and can therefore offer undergraduates a varied and flexible timetable. Students must study a variety of time periods, places, and approaches to history, but choose their own options within this framework and are free to follow their own academic interests. You can study options on African, Asian, American, British, European, and Global and Transnational History from the fading years of the Roman Empire to the present day. You have the opportunity to explore diverse approaches to the past, including by learning languages or by engaging with other disciplines such as art history, economics, and gender studies. 

These are the heart of undergraduate learning at Oxford. A small group (usually two or three) students agree a specific area of study with a tutor who is an expert in that area. The students undertake their own research and write an essay on that subject, which is marked by the tutor. The tutor and students then meet for a tutorial in which the area of study and essays are discussed. Tutorials last for about one hour, and students have one or two each week of term. Such detailed and personalised teaching is rigorous and intellectually challenging.

These are discussion groups of between four and twelve students, giving the opportunity to debate ideas, discuss reading, and present to a small group. Undergraduates usually have one seminar a week.

Lectures are talks given by a wide range of specialists who will share the latest research and thinking with relatively large groups of students. Undergraduates should attend two or three lectures a week.

Language study

All history undergraduates have the chance to develop their language skills. The Faculty offers students the opportunity to attend special language classes for historians, and additional languages can be studied independently through the  Oxford University Language Centre .

Joint School courses

Students on Joint School courses will spend approximately half their time studying history, and half their time studying the ‘other half’ of their course. They are joint degrees, and have a much smaller intake than the single BA History course, so entry is more competitive. The BA History course is wide ranging and flexible, so if your interest is in, for example political history, please do consider applying for History rather than History and Politics.

What is History at Oxford like?

This video looks in depth on what the History courses at Oxford will offer to you.

This video was created for the Oxford Virtual Open Day in July 2020.

What I love about studying history

Meet the students and find out what they love about studying history at Oxford.

History of Art

• Admissions Requirements
• Fees and Funding
• Studying at Oxford

Course overview

UCAS code: V350 Entrance requirements: AAA Course duration: 3 years (BA)

Subject requirements

Required subjects: A subject involving essay writing Recommended subjects: Not applicable Helpful subjects: History of Art, Fine Art, History, English, a language

Other course requirements

Admissions tests: None Written Work: One piece, one response

Admissions statistics*

Interviewed: 42% Successful: 13% Intake: 15 *3-year average 2021-23

Tel: +44 (0) 1865 286830 Email:  [email protected]

Unistats information for this course can be found at the bottom of the page

Please note that there may be no data available if the number of course participants is very small.

About the course

Anything designed by human beings exhibits visual and material qualities that are specific to the place and period in which it originates.

History of Art aims to arrive at an historical understanding of the origins, meanings and purposes of art and artefacts from a wide range of world cultures. It asks about the circumstances of objects' making, their makers, the media used, their functions, their critical reception and their subsequent histories.

A degree in History of Art educates students in the historical interpretation of art in its cultural contexts. It also provides skills in the critical analysis of objects through the cultivation of visual literacy, as well as encourages students to analyse critically related texts and documents.

The acquired skills have broad applicability in a wide range of professional settings, as well as providing personal enlightenment and enjoyment.

The University's collections, including the famous Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers museums, provide objects for first-hand study under the supervision of those entrusted with their care. The historic architecture of the University, the city of Oxford and its environs supplies a rich source of study in its own right.

The Oxford degree is designed to provide innovative insights into a wide range of world art, drawing its expertise from various University faculties and the staff of University collections, as well as from the department itself.

There is a strong emphasis on how primary visual and written sources from various periods and places can be analysed in relation to works of art and architecture. Students are also encouraged to explore what it means to call something a work of 'Art' and to consider images and objects that may not necessarily conform to traditional definitions of 'Art'.

Unistats information

Discover Uni  course data provides applicants with Unistats statistics about undergraduate life at Oxford for a particular undergraduate course.

Please select 'see course data' to view the full Unistats data for History of Art.

Please note that there may be no data available if the number of course participants is very small. 

Visit the Studying at Oxford section of this page for a more general insight into what studying here is likely to be like.

A typical week

Each week you will have around two lectures, and a weekly tutorial.

Teaching usually takes place in the department or in a college, as well as in one of the Oxford museums and galleries where tutors often lecture in front of actual works of art. Visits to exhibitions or historical buildings will also be part of the course.

Outside the classroom most of your time will be spent preparing essays for your tutorials and working in libraries, archives or museums on longer research papers.

Tutorials usually comprise between one and three students and a tutor. Class sizes may vary depending on the options you choose, but there would usually be no more than around 16 students, and often significantly fewer. 

Most tutorials, classes, and lectures are delivered by tutors or curators. Many are world-leading experts with years of experience in teaching and research. Some teaching may also be delivered by postgraduate students who are studying at doctoral level and have normally received formal training in teaching undergraduates. 

To find out more about how our teaching year is structured, visit our  Academic Year  page.

Course structure

Years 2 and 3.

Visit the  History of Art  website for the latest information on all course details and a full list of current options.

The content and format of this course may change in some circumstances. Read further information about potential course changes .

Academic requirements

Wherever possible, your grades are considered in the context in which they have been achieved.

Read further information on  how we use contextual data .

If a practical component forms part of any of your science A‐levels used to meet your offer, we expect you to pass it.

If English is not your first language you may also need to meet our English language requirements .

All candidates must follow the application procedure as shown on our  Applying to Oxford  pages.

The following information gives specific details for students applying for this course.

Written test

You do not need to take a written test as part of an application for this course.

Written work

*Applicants should have first-hand access to their chosen object so that they may examine it closely in person. When submitting their response essay, they should include a photographic reproduction of their chosen object if possible. In writing their response, applicants may focus on whichever aspects of the object they consider to be most significant. These might include the medium, the design or style, the technique, the subject matter, and/or the location. No special preparation or research is required and footnotes / references are not expected unless a direct quotation is included. The 750-word response should demonstrate curiosity, sensitivity and clarity in response to the chosen object and visual culture more generally. It should be a new piece of writing, not previously submitted for another programme or for assessment or another school assignment.

Read our  further guidance on the submission of written work  for more information, and to download a cover sheet.

What are tutors looking for?

Candidates should show evidence of lively engagement with visual culture, both contemporary and historical. Prior knowledge of art history is absolutely not a requirement and many successful applicants have never studied the subject before university.

What is looked for in applicants is a keen and critical observation of art and of the visual and material environment in general. At interview, candidates are invited to demonstrate a willingness to engage in focused discussion and debate about visual issues, and in addition to responding to one or more photographs of unfamiliar images, which applicants will not be expected to recognise.

Visit the History of Art website for more information on the selection criteria for this course.

The cultural industries are one of the biggest employers in the world. In addition to museums, galleries and auction houses, there are many governmental and nongovernmental agencies that work to conserve, research and promote cultural heritage and to further the production of art both in the UK and around the world.

Furthermore, History of Art graduates will be especially competitive for posts in any area that requires combinations of visual and verbal skills. These include publishing, advertising, marketing, film, television and web-based media. History of Art also prepares graduates to enter the wide range of professions available to all humanities graduates, including the civil service, law and the financial sector.

Note: These annual fees are for full-time students who begin this undergraduate course here in 2024. Course fee information for courses starting in 2025 will be updated in September.

We don't want anyone who has the academic ability to get a place to study here to be held back by their financial circumstances. To meet that aim, Oxford offers one of the most generous financial support packages available for UK students and this may be supplemented by support from your college.

Further details about fee status eligibility can be found on the fee status webpage.

For more information please refer to our  course fees page . Fees will usually increase annually. For details, please see our  guidance on likely increases to fees and charges.

Living costs

Living costs at Oxford might be less than you’d expect, as our  world-class resources and college provision can help keep costs down.

Living costs for the academic year starting in 2024 are estimated to be between £1,345 and £1,955 for each month you are in Oxford. Our academic year is made up of three eight-week terms, so you would not usually need to be in Oxford for much more than six months of the year but may wish to budget over a nine-month period to ensure you also have sufficient funds during the holidays to meet essential costs. For further details please visit our  living costs webpage .

• Financial support

**If you have studied at undergraduate level before and completed your course, you will be classed as an Equivalent or Lower Qualification student (ELQ) and won’t be eligible to receive government or Oxford funding

Fees, Funding and Scholarship search

Additional Fees and Charges Information for History of Art

There are no compulsory costs for this course beyond the fees shown above and your living costs.

Contextual information

Unistats course data from Discover Uni provides applicants with statistics about a particular undergraduate course at Oxford. For a more holistic insight into what studying your chosen course here is likely to be like, we would encourage you to view the information below as well as to explore our website more widely.

The Oxford tutorial

College tutorials are central to teaching at Oxford. Typically, they take place in your college and are led by your academic tutor(s) who teach as well as do their own research. Students will also receive teaching in a variety of other ways, depending on the course. This will include lectures and classes, and may include laboratory work and fieldwork. However, tutorials offer a level of personalised attention from academic experts unavailable at most universities.

During tutorials (normally lasting an hour), college subject tutors will give you and one or two tutorial partners feedback on prepared work and cover a topic in depth. The other student(s) in your tutorials will be doing the same course as you. Such regular and rigorous academic discussion develops and facilitates learning in a way that isn’t possible through lectures alone. Tutorials also allow for close progress monitoring so tutors can quickly provide additional support if necessary.

Read more about tutorials and an Oxford education

College life

Our colleges are at the heart of Oxford’s reputation as one of the best universities in the world.

• At Oxford, everyone is a member of a college as well as their subject department(s) and the University. Students therefore have both the benefits of belonging to a large, renowned institution and to a small and friendly academic community. Each college or hall is made up of academic and support staff, and students. Colleges provide a safe, supportive environment leaving you free to focus on your studies, enjoy time with friends and make the most of the huge variety of opportunities.
• Porters’ lodge (a staffed entrance and reception)
• Dining hall
• Lending library (often open 24/7 in term time)
• Student accommodation
• Tutors’ teaching rooms
• Chapel and/or music rooms
• Green spaces
• Common room (known as the JCR).
• All first-year students are offered college accommodation either on the main site of their college or in a nearby college annexe. This means that your neighbours will also be ‘freshers’ and new to life at Oxford. This accommodation is guaranteed, so you don’t need to worry about finding somewhere to live after accepting a place here, all of this is organised for you before you arrive.
• All colleges offer at least one further year of accommodation and some offer it for the entire duration of your degree. You may choose to take up the option to live in your college for the whole of your time at Oxford, or you might decide to arrange your own accommodation after your first year – perhaps because you want to live with friends from other colleges.
• While college academic tutors primarily support your academic development, you can also ask their advice on other things. Lots of other college staff including welfare officers help students settle in and are available to offer guidance on practical or health matters. Current students also actively support students in earlier years, sometimes as part of a college ‘family’ or as peer supporters trained by the University’s Counselling Service.

Read more about Oxford colleges and how you choose

No deferred applications accepted

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• Visit the faculty's website

Our 2024 undergraduate open days will be held on 26 and 27 June and 20 September.

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RELATED PAGES

• Which Oxford colleges offer my course?
• Your academic year

Related courses

• Archaeology and Anthropology
• Classical Archaeology and Ancient History
• Modern Languages

FEEL INSPIRED?

Why not have a look at the History of Art podcasts page , where you can listen to a number of core lectures and public seminars.

You might also like to view the Faculty's reading list for prospective students or visit their research blog . In addition, you may find it interesting to explore the following resources:

• BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time'
• BBC Arts coverage

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Department of the History of Art

Congratulations to phd student ella gonzalez on upcoming publication.

The Department of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins proudly congratulates Ella Gonzalez, a graduate student in the program, on her forthcoming publication (co-edited with Cynthia Coburn and Ellen Caldwell), titled   Gender Violence, Art, and the Viewer: An Intervention . The book is set to be released by Penn State University Press and is currently available for pre-order.

“We extend our warmest congratulations to Ella Gonzalez on this remarkable achievement,” said Mitch Merback, chair of History of Art at Johns Hopkins. “Her dedication to critical scholarship and her contributions to this important field of study are truly commendable. We are proud to have her as a member of our academic community.”

Ella Gonzalez is currently pursuing her graduate studies in the History of Art program at Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests include Art and archaeology of Ancient Greece and the Mediterranean world.

For more information about Ella Gonzalez and her forthcoming publication, please visit Penn State University Press .

MSt in History of Art and Visual Culture

The Department of the History of Art is a vibrant centre for postgraduate students, and offers a one-year taught postgraduate MSt degree in the History of Art and Visual Culture (MSt, ‘Master of Studies’, is the distinctive name for what elsewhere is often called ‘MA’). Students admitted to this programme do not necessarily have to have a first degree in art history, and a broad range of applicants are welcomed. The programme is suitable both as preparation for further research and as a postgraduate qualification in its own right. In addition to a rigorous training in methodology, students take one two-term optional course, and research and write a 15,000 word dissertation on a topic they choose, approved and supervised by a scholar with relevant specialist expertise. All postgraduate students take part in the Department’s Research Seminars, and in the huge range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary seminars which make Oxford an outstandingly exciting setting for the study of History of Art.

Core Course: Issues in Art History

This MSt core course provides a theoretical and methodological interrogation of the practice of art history. It aims to address the major challenges and issues that face all art historians today, no matter what their field. The course is motivated by a single key question: what needs to be done to turn art history into a discourse that can address the most pressing issues of our time? Structured by ten two-hour seminars, the course focuses on a selection of art historical texts that are pushing the field in new directions or have opened up new possibilities for art history. It will be taken for granted in this course that art history is a mode of argument and persuasion, rather than a search for an absolute truth. Seminars will be supplemented by workshops on professional practice and by art handling sessions with a curator at the Ashmolean Museum.

Optional Courses

Applicants are asked to give a preliminary option course choice in their application, and will be asked to confirm this choice before commencing studies. Due to numbers, please be aware that it is not always possible to guarantee your first choice. Optional courses tend to change on a yearly basis, and are linked to the staff members teaching the options in that particular year.  Details of options for 2024/5 confirmed below.  Please note that the deadline has now passed for 2024/25 admission.

Dissertation Supervision

The Faculty appoints supervisors on the basis of their assessment of their fit with your research interests and their spare teaching capacity. However, before you apply you should ensure that the Faculty has the ability to support your interests by having academic staff with matching expertise. Please check the research interests of Faculty staff by visiting the People page.

For details about the application process, please view the  graduate admissions section of the History Faculty website  and the  History of Art page of the online prospectus .  For general admissions enquiries about the MSt or DPhil programme, please email [email protected]

Optional Courses for 2024-25

Global perspectives on american art: art and environmental thought in the americas.

Instructor: Prof. Erin Pauwels,Terra Visiting Professor of American Art, 2024-25

Art has played an immense role in constructing an image of the American environment as a natural resource, scientific specimen, mythic Eden, arena of struggle, and/or fragile ecosystem. This course takes an ecocritical perspective on art in the Americas, offering a thematic survey of how land, animals, and material resources have inspired fine art, material and visual culture made in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean. We will investigate how artists have visualized diverse locales and shaped public perception of the North American environment, as well as exploring the unexpected ways in which ecological conditions impact the social, political, and economic contexts for making art. Beyond studying direct representations of landscape, climate, or weather, we also explore visual systems for understanding the natural world, such as mapping and survey photography as well as creative practice that makes nature its medium, such as land art and urban planning.

The course’s thematic case studies are organized chronologically, spanning pre-contact art and architecture by Native Americans through contemporary art activism in the context of global climate change. Within this framework, we unpack concepts that have been foundational to American culture, such as “wilderness” and “frontier,” and consider visual histories related to National Park systems; borderlands and migration; industrialization and resource extraction; race and urban ecologies; photography’s environmental impacts; extinction and ecological change. Along the way, we will cover a diverse range of artists and media from the paintings and writings of Thomas Cole and John James Audubon to more recent work by Robert Smithson, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Subhankar Banerjee, Maya Lin, Mark Dion, and other contemporary artists.

By the end of the course, students will learn to analyze works of visual art using “ecocritical” methods of art history—combining visual analysis with pertinent theoretical ideas, cultural knowledge, and environmental history—and will build knowledge of diverse American artists and modes of artmaking. They also will gain familiarity with contemporary ecocritical theory including texts by authors such as Timothy Morton, Donna Haraway, T.J. Demos, Robin Kimmerer, and Anna Tsing. By highlighting the interconnectedness of human beings with their environment in the Americas, as well as the power of art to re-imagine that relationship, the course provokes students to re-think accepted canons and practices through criteria of sustainability, environmental justice, and our ethical responsibility to non-human life as well as to one another.

Mapping East & West: Art, Culture and Identity

Instructor: Professor JP Park

Since the 18th century the binary of “East and West” has functioned as a paradigmatic cultural comparison. In many people’s minds, these constructs represent two opposite poles of human experience. Right up to the present day, some Western writers argue the uniqueness (and thus superiority) of European art, while others have advocated learning from Asian ideals. Likewise, some scholars, such as Friedrich von Schlegel, believe that Chinese is the most primitive of languages, while other scholars believe that it is the most advanced. With increasing globalization and the rise of China as a world power, the need to stretch our imaginations beyond the constraints of traditional constructs has become a serious concern for fields ranging from business and law to anthropology and social work.

One of the major goals of this course is to offer you the tools to critically examine popular accounts of China, its art and cultures. Exposure to logical, historical, artistic, and literary modes of analysis will prepare students to recognize common misconceptions and formulate questions about Chinese art and culture in more rigorous and sophisticated ways. In addition, through a careful examination of scholarly research on both Eastern and Western arts, you can acquire a fuller appreciation for the diversity of cultural expression and shared human experience. In this process, you will gain an understanding of how the field is structured and how it has grown by tracing important debates of recent years. While providing a range of topics, this course hopes to produce future scholars who are well equipped with balanced and critical perspectives.

The Politics of Modernism: Art in France, 1880-1912

Instructor: Professor Alastair Wright

The course examines modernist art produced in France in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, interrogating how diverse artistic practices engaged with the politics of class, gender, and race. Topics will include the relationship between art and mass culture; modernism’s affiliations with both reactionary and revolutionary ideologies of the ‘popular’; the gendering of modern art in period accounts and in later art historical narratives; the connections between modernism and French colonialism; and the encounter with African art and myths of the ‘primitive’. To explore these issues, the writings of artists and their contemporaries will be examined alongside recent art-historical work and a range of theoretical texts on questions relevant to the materials of the course.

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2024 Husky 100

Each year, the Husky 100 recognizes 100 undergraduate and graduate students who are making the most of their time at the University of Washington. We are thrilled to announce that three Design seniors have been selected for the Husky 100 this year. Please join us in congratulating these amazing students:  

Ann Lai Industrial Design

Olivia Oomen Industrial Design

Emily Tang Visual Communication Design

Read more about their accomplishments on the Husky 100 website.  Featured on University of Washington 

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