Art History

Art history is crucial for today’s interconnected planet where people across cultures interact with each other at an unprecedented rate and on an increasingly visual level

Objects and images have become central to communicating across cultural divides, conveying meaning to multiple groups without reliance upon any one spoken language or cultural tradition. Art history strategically equips students with tools needed to succeed in, and contribute to, today’s culturally plural society and job market.

Art history is not a simple celebration of the masterworks of the art world. It situates students at the crossroads of visual, verbal, and written communication, and immerses them in a rich global context of historical and contemporary cultures. Students in our program become adept writers, thinkers, and cultural leaders, uniquely equipped to enter a society and job market that value these skills.

A Degree In Art History Trains Students To:

  • Think and write critically
  • Successfully argue a point of view in written and spoken form
  • Conduct critical research on a variety of topics and source materials
  • Analyze the complex ways in which images and things convey meaning
  • Relate historical forms of visual communication to contemporary ones
  • Understand the conventions of artistic creation in their proper cultural contexts
  • Critique power structures and how they utilize art and other graphic forms of expression

Student Feature: Jade Gutierrez

Area Faculty & Lecturers

Alumni Spotlight

Aubrey Hobart

MA, Art History, 2010

I am now the Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Roswell Museum and Art Center in Roswell, New Mexico. The city is mostly known for aliens, but there's a surprisingly strong arts community here as well. Sadly, there is very little Spanish Colonial or Renaissance art in our collection, but I've learned a great deal about the New Mexico modernists and contemporary Native American art. I'm hoping to get my first book published this year.

Aubrey Hobart

After my first semester at ˛ĘĂń±¦µä, I sat down with professor Claire Fargo (Emerita) to discuss my academic trajectory. She explained that the field of Italian Renaissance art history was pretty saturated and encouraged me to look at what else was happening in the world around the same time. The next semester, I took "Conquest and Colonialism" with James Cordova, a class about Spanish Colonial art in the Americas. I was so fascinated by the subject and his approach to it that I changed my major and eventually earned my PhD in Spanish Colonial art. It was at ˛ĘĂń±¦µä that I truly learned how to think critically, and it significantly reshaped my personal and professional life for the better.

Aubrey Hobart in museum

Morgan Butts

MA, Art History, 2016

Access to courses that were relevant and faculty whose areas of study directly related to my own were my top priorities. ˛ĘĂń±¦µä had both of those things. Having the opportunity to work with Dr. James CĂłrdova, and then Dr. Annette de Stecher in my second year, was the primary draw. I know my time working with them (among all of the other incredible faculty in the program) really elevated my work and helped develop critical thinking skills and theoretical framing that I still use today—both as an arts professional and as a person.

I look back and know I absolutely made the right choice. I couldn’t have asked for more supportive faculty. My interests are varied, and when I decide I want to do something, it’s difficult to talk me out of it. If there was something I wanted to do, even if it was unprecedented or part of an abnormal trajectory for an art history graduate student, the conversation was never “oh, that won’t work,” but instead “let’s try and make that work for you.”

Morgan Butts

I had the chance to travel to Peru for research, thanks to support from a United Government of Graduate Students travel grant. Environmental and architectural context were critical to my work—my thesis wouldn’t have been the same without that opportunity to travel.

I also often reflect back on the experience I had as a teaching assistant. While I was excited and honored to receive the opportunity to teach initially, I had no idea when I started the program that teaching would have such a massive impact on my life. Working in a university now, I can’t overstate how formative an undergraduate college experience can be. I feel so grateful when I think back to the conversations about art that I got to have with students each week, where we could ask difficult questions and learn together.

Morgan Butts Eli Broad Museum

I’m currently serving as the Director of Communications at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University. The museum focuses on the art of our time—in dialogue with the historical—and encourages engagement with timely issues of local relevance and global significance, such as restorative, environmental, and racial justice. I’m fortunate enough to work in one of the few Zaha Hadid-designed buildings in the United States as well. It’s a pretty big perk! We also have a second space across the street—the MSU Broad Art Lab—that houses community-driven programming and exhibitions that focus on experimentation and collaboration in art-making.

I think quite a bit about how everything I experienced in graduate school led me to this position. While I had years of professional communications experience, my leadership style is deeply rooted in the classroom—as both a graduate teaching assistant and a student—where listening, co-learning, negotiating, and making decisions are all of equal importance.

Morgan Butts, Eli Broad Museum