Master of Arts
Doctor of Philosophy

For More Information

Campus address: E. William Doty Fine Arts Building (DFA) 2.502, phone (512) 232-2047; 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

Contact: Clare Thoman, Graduate Program Coordinator

URL: https://art.utexas.edu/admissions/graduate/art-history

Facilities for Graduate Work

Facilities for study and research include an open-shelf fine arts library containing more than 125,000 volumes and periodicals; extensive digital-image databases; 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 2.5 million volumes; the rare books and manuscripts of the Harry Ransom Center; and 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 rare books, manuscripts, photographs, film, and art.

Areas of Study

Graduate study in art history is offered in traditional areas of Western art and in African and African American, Asian, Islamic, Latin American, Chicano/a, US Latino/a, and pre-Columbian art. The student may pursue the degree of Master of Arts or that of Doctor of Philosophy.

For Masters students, the general track allows students to cover diverse historical areas of art history; students who desire to pursue a more specialized approach may choose tracks from one of three areas: ancient (western and non-western), medieval to early modern, and modern.

Graduate Studies Committee

The following faculty members served on the Graduate Studies Committee (GSC) in the spring 2023 semester.

Edward Chambers Michael J Charlesworth C Ondine Chavoya John R Clarke Penelope J Davies George F Flaherty Julia E Guernsey Linda D Henderson Joan A Holladay Ann C Johns Janice Leoshko Stephennie Mulder

Adele E Nelson Moyosore Benjamin Okediji Athanasio Papalexandrou Susan W Rather Ann M Reynolds Astrid Runggaldier Richard A Shiff Cherise Smith Jeffrey C Smith David S Stuart Louis A Waldman

Admission 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.

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.