Art History
- Master of Arts
- Doctor of Philosophy
Facilities for Graduate Work
Facilities for study and research include an open-shelf fine arts library containing more than 125,000 volumes and periodicals; a collection of 450,000 slides; a highly specialized photographic study collection containing many unique photographs; and the Blanton Museum of Art, which has an active exhibition program and can provide training in the various aspects of museum work.
The Fine Arts Library is supplemented by the Perry-Castañeda Library, with holdings of more than two million volumes; by the rare books and manuscripts of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center; and by the specialized libraries of the School of Architecture, the Department of Classics, and the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies.
Visual resources on campus include the Mari and James A. Michener Collection of American Painting; the Duncan Collection of Latin American Art; the Suida-Manning Collection of Renaissance and Baroque Art; an encyclopedic print collection; the Battle Collection of casts after ancient sculpture; and additional drawings, paintings, prints, sculptures, silver, and furniture. Visual resources in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center include the Gernsheim History of Photography Collection and the Art Collection.
Areas of Study
Graduate study in art history is offered in all areas of Western art and in pre-Columbian and Asian art. The student may pursue the degree of Master of Arts or that of Doctor of Philosophy.
Graduate Studies Committee
The following faculty members served on the Graduate Studies Committee in the spring semester 2006–2007.
- Jacqueline E. Barnitz
- Steve Bourget
- Michael Charlesworth
- John R. Clarke
- Penelope J. Davies
- Julia G. Guernsey
- Linda Dalrymple Henderson
- Joan A. Holladay
- Janice Leoshko
- Nassos Papalexandrou
- Glenn Peers
- Susan W. Rather
- Ann Morris Reynolds
- Richard Shiff
- Cherise Smith
- Jeffrey Chipps Smith
- David S. Stuart
- Louis A. Waldman
Admission and Degree Requirements
Master of Arts
Students seeking admission to the Master of Arts degree program are expected to have an undergraduate degree in art history or to have completed substantial coursework in art history. Students must also demonstrate the capacity for advanced academic work.
The program requires thirty semester hours of coursework, including six hours in the thesis course and six hours in supporting work. (Supporting work consists of upper-division or graduate courses in such related areas as history, literature, anthropology, archaeology, classical civilization, philosophy, architecture, music, museum education, and area studies.) In addition to Art History 395 (Art Historical Methods), the student must complete four seminars selected according to his or her chosen degree track (general, ancient, medieval to early modern, or modern). The student takes an additional three semester hours of art history, preferably as a seminar but, in certain cases, as a reading tutorial (Art History 396) or a lecture tutorial (Art History 396K). The student must show evidence of the ability to read one foreign language by the end of three long-session semesters in the program.
Doctor of Philosophy
For admission to the Doctor of Philosophy degree program, the student must have a master’s degree in art history or have completed substantial coursework in art history on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Students with special backgrounds in other disciplines are judged on an individual basis.
Degree requirements are (1) completion of five seminar courses, including coursework in at least two of the following chronological areas of Western and non-Western art: ancient, medieval to early modern, and modern; (2) reading competence in two foreign languages; (3) successful participation in the dissertation colloquium; (4) a written and oral qualifying examination that admits the student to candidacy; (5) the dissertation; and (6) the oral defense of the dissertation.
For More Information
Campus address: E. William Doty Fine Arts Building (DFA) 2.124, phone (512) 471-7757; campus mail code: D1300
Mailing address: The University of Texas at Austin, Graduate Program in Art History, Department of Art and Art History, 1 University Station D1300, Austin TX 78712
URL: http://www.finearts.utexas.edu/aah/art_history/graduate_program.cfm