WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH A DEGREE IN ART HISTORY?

Recent graduates have gone on to graduate school in art history, architecture, film studies, law school and medical school, and found fulfilling careers in a variety of areas from gallery curatorships to teaching.

Graduates from the past five years have been accepted into prestigious graduate programs at institutions such as:

• Pratt Institute
• University of Virginia
• University of Texas-Austin (PhD, art history)
• Sotheby’s, New York City (MA)
• Sotheby’s, London, England
• London College of Design, England
• New York University (MA, film studies)
• Rutgers University (MA, art history)
• University of Edinburgh, Scotland (MA)

Examples of the positions held by graduates from the last five years include:

• Art dealer, Jerald Melberg Gallery, Charlotte, N.C.
• Peace Corps volunteer, Senegal
• Curator, Halsey Institute
• Head of the architectural library, Tulane University School of Architecture
• Fashion photographer, Paris, France
• Rights and reproductions coordinator, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
• Exhibition aid, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The impressive achievements of our students and recent graduates – whether they are entering graduate programs, working in professions related to their academic experience, or moving into new areas using the skills they developed through the art history major – attest to the quality of our program.

Ours is the largest independent art history department among South Carolina colleges, and our department is closely affiliated with the College’s Historic Preservation and Community Planning program.

In addition, the city of Charleston is a major center of the arts, home to galleries, museums, and historic sites that offer internships, and other hands-on learning opportunities.

Active Learning Opportunities

Study abroad programs enable you to experience firsthand the art, architecture and urban environments you’ve studied in class.

Tuition and travel scholarships encourage you to become familiar with the places and monuments you’ve studied in the classroom. Two art history majors recently were awarded grants from the College of Charleston Student Undergraduate Research Foundation for travel and research, one to 11 cities in Europe and another to Japan.

Internships provide you with real-life experiences while you work under the guidance of a faculty mentor. A growing number of our students choose to pursue internships, often in museums or galleries. Most recently, students have interned with:

• Charleston Museum
• City Gallery, Charleston
• Heyward-Washington House
• Edmonston-Alston House
• Gibbes Museum of Art
• North Carolina Museum of Art
• Mint Museum
• White Cube Museum, London
• International African American Museum
• Dayton Art Institute, working on the Asian Collection
• Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Services (SITES) in Washington, D.C.

Other Special Opportunities

Maymester. A three-week term between the end of the spring semester and the beginning of the summer sessions offers you a chance to engage in a concentrated investigation of a subject that particularly draws your interest. Classes meet for three and a half hours, five days a week. Recent Maymester courses in art history include:

• Addlestone Seminar on the Arts and Culture of the Lowcountry
• Arts of Spain
• New Media in Contemporary Art
• Art and Theatre in London
• Building Manners and Laws: Charleston Architecture and Culture

Travel courses. Most recently, faculty have led travel courses to Spain, France and England.

The senior seminar is a semester-long research endeavor that you undertake with faculty guidance, culminating in a major paper. The project involves both a written paper and an oral presentation. Topics explored by our students include:

• Romanticism
• Saints and Sinners, Heroes and Villains of the Baroque
• Medieval Pilgrimage Art and Architecture
• The Ramayana in the Art of India
• The Art of Pablo Picasso

A growing number of art history students conduct independent studies that incorporate both research papers and public presentations. Recent independent study topics include:

• Short Film
• Medieval Quackery in 18th-Century Art
• Early Films of Robert Altman
• Recent Developments in Neo-Film Noir
• Picasso’s Parade
• Japanese Prints at the Gibbes Museum

Class projects. Many courses incorporate opportunities for independent, original work. For example, a student design for a “friendship garden pavilion” created for the Architectural Design Studio was used to create a permanent feature in a nearby community.

Historic Preservation and Community Planning is a program (as well as a major) within the Art History Department. This program offers students a unique area of concentration within Art History, one that is superbly suited to Charleston and its region.

Learning Resources

City of Charleston. A few examples of significant learning resources in the greater Charleston area include:

• Gibbes Museum of Art. American art of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries with a Charleston perspective, as well as an excellent collection of Japanese woodblock Prints of the Edo period.
• Spoleto Festival USA. A major national arts festival, held in the late spring.
• Moja Festival.Annual celebration of African-American and Caribbean art.
• Sculpture in the South. Annual contemporary sculpture show in nearby Summerville, S.C.
• Drayton Hall. A National Trust for Historic Preservation property and one of the finest examples of Georgian-Palladian architecture in the country.

College of Charleston

• The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art/Halsey Gallery hosts 6-10 exhibitions per year. Facilities currently consist of a 750-sq.-ft. downstairs gallery and a 980-sq.-ft. upstairs gallery. Plans call for an expansion that will nearly triple the exhibition space.
• Online image databases.We are currently implementing a transition from our extensive collection of traditional slides to an all-digital image storage and retrieval system.

“I found that the art history program and faculty exceeded my expectations. The department is my home away from home, and the faculty is my family. My double major in art history and historic preservation is the perfect fit. It combines my interests in history, art, and architecture. I’m also planning on taking advantage of the great study abroad opportunities within the department, participating in the summer trip to Italy to study architecture an urbanism.”

Lauren Campbell ’07