The UMass Boston Art Department offers a general major in Art leading to a B.A. The faculty of the Art Department includes both scholars and professional artists, and the curriculum aims to combine their differing approaches to visual experience. The creative/studio curriculum provides a sound basis in creative process, in visual thinking, and in certain technical skills. Courses in art history explore the aesthetic attributes of art objects contextualized in history, culture, and religion. Students may elect to focus their studies in art history, or in studio, or they may chose to balance the two. The Art Department offers courses from the 100level to the 400level. One hundred level courses are introductory courses that provide a broad overview of the topic. Two hundred level courses narrow the focus to a specific medium in studio art or topic in art history, but remain introductory and without prerequisites. Three hundred and four hundred level courses are advanced courses requiring previous work in the topic or medium. A major in art takes students from introductory work to the advanced levels as they gain experience and knowledge. All art majors take a capstone course in the last year of their coursework. Many courses in studio art and art history satisfy General Education requirements. Additionally, the Art Department offers opportunities for internships and fieldwork, independent study when primary coursework in regular departmental course offerings are exhausted, and a two-semester course sequence for writing an honors thesis.

Our program has helped many students to attain a level of professionalism that has allowed them to be admitted to some of the best graduate schools in studio art, art history, and architecture. Some alumni have started successful businesses: video production companies, graphic design studios, photo studios, and multi-media production companies. Many students have also gone on in other fields such as psychology, journalism, and the law. Many Art majors remain in the Boston area and continue to have contact with the university and individual faculty members. Many also maintain their interest in art, attending exhibitions and lectures at local museums and arts organizations, with those inclined toward studio practice continuing to make new art. Some have even returned to teach at the university. All of this is evidence of the impact an arts education has on the lives of our students. It is something that they will have perpetually, a touchstone that allows them to fulfill the Department’s concern for developing critically aware, intellectually supple members of society. Students continue to develop from the foundation they built in the Art major. Our students have gone on to study for the Ph.D. in art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, Oxford, Brown, Columbia, Berkeley, and New York University. Others have pursued the MA in art history at Williams College, Brown, and the University of Munich and in film history at New York University,. Students have also pursued training at the masters level in fields related to art history: in Art Business at Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London, in Arts Management at Boston University, and in Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art. They have gone on to work as university professors, gallery directors, museum curators, archivists, librarians, and secondary school art teachers. One recent graduate is a junior curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Another is a curator at the American Museum of Folk Art in New York. Yet another is the director of the highly regarded avant-garde art gallery Hallwalls in Buffalo. Some graduates work in art conservation; one alumna is paper conservator at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, while another is a senior archivist in the Harvard University Archives. One graduate is the art librarian at John Cabot University in Rome. Another is developing the data for the Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property, 1933-1945. Students also go on to study studio art at the graduate level. Students have received the MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Cornell University, Cranbrook, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Tyler School of the Arts, School of the Art Institute in Chicago and the Massachusetts College of Art. A few have completed professional degrees in architecture and in historic preservation, arts administration, and art conservation. They have become photo-journalists, videographers, multimedia artists, and film-makers, museum preparators, muralists, lighting designers, as well as artists working and exhibiting in Boston and beyond; some of our alumnae have become studio faculty at colleges and art schools. Tools & Resources * Academic Advising * Academic Calendar * Academic Policies * Academic Support * Blackboard * Bookstore * Bursar * Career Services & Internships * Course Catalog * Healey Library * Honors Program * Registrar * Study Abroad Connect * Request Information › * Apply to Undergraduate Admissions › * Apply to Graduate Admissions › * Work with an Advisor › Navigation Back to the College of Liberal Arts Art Department * About the Department * Faculty * Undergraduate Programs * Beyond the Classroom * Research and Publications * Scholarships and Awards * News * Events * Careers * Alumni * Contact Explore Departments & Programs * Africana Studies Department * American Studies Department * Anthropology Department * Applied Linguistics Department * Art Department * Asian American Studies (Program) * Asian Studies Department * Classics Department * Communication Department * Economics Department * English Department * History Department * Latin American and Iberian Studies Department (Hispanic Studies) * Latino Studies Program * Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Department * Native American and Indigenous Studies * Performing Arts Department * Philosophy Department * Political Science Department * Psychology Department * Sociology Department * Women’s and Gender Studies Department UMass Boston