The VCUarts Department of Art History is engaged in establishing a global approach to the visual arts. Its faculty and students recognize the need to study the permeability of geographic, temporal and theoretical boundaries, which in the past separated and defined the world.
The Department offers undergraduate and graduate programs with various tracks from which students select their programs of study. The undergraduate program, leading to the Bachelor of Arts degree, offers Architectural History and Art Historical Studies tracks. The graduate program leading to the Master of Arts degree offers Architectural History, Art Historical Studies, and Museum Studies tracks. The graduate program leading to the Doctor of Philosophy degree offers Art Historical Studies and Curatorial tracks.
The full-time faculty members in the Department of Art History conduct research and offer courses in European art since the Renaissance, art and architecture of the Americas, modernism and postmodernism, South Asian and Himalayan art, African and African-Diaspora art, and the history and theory of museum practice. Graduate students conduct their own research under the direction of faculty in the above areas.
The Department is located on VCU’s Monroe Park Campus in Richmond, the state capital of Virginia. Richmond offers a host of museums and historic sites—including the renowned Virginia Museum of Fine Art with its encyclopedic collections—as well as easy access to Washington, DC, and the Smithsonian Institution’s many specialized collections, archives, and libraries.
