Please note that this course has been temporarily suspended and is not available for 2013 entry. If you have any queries about applying to this course for 2014 entry, please contact our Undergraduate Admissions Team for more information. Our BA History of Art course looks at art from the Renaissance to the present day, and includes a study visit to Florence. It offers a varied, flexible and distinctive curriculum across the field of the history of art, enabling students to choose from a variety of specialist options, engaging with art works that range from Old Master paintings to the most up-to-date contemporary art. Modules explore a wide variety of media, including architecture, urbanism, photography and video, as well as painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture.

Art history is perhaps the most directly vocational subject you can study in the humanities. As well as acquiring skills in research, analysis and developing your own voice in both written work and in public presentations, you will also develop high levels of competency in visual analysis. Our first-year modules include training in presentational skills and a group project assessed by representatives from regional employers, helping you to focus on developing your employability. These skills open the door to careers in art galleries, museums, art dealing and auctioneering, conservation and heritage organisations like the National Trust, as well as in art journalism. Among our former undergraduates, for example, are a member of the valuation team at Sotheby’s New York, the Head of Learning at firstsite (a £26 million visual arts centre in Colchester), the current director of ESCALA, and the Visual Merchandising Manager at John Lewis flagship store in Oxford Street, London.