ucla art history phd

Art History

Building on a long tradition of intellectual innovation, the Department of Art History at UCLA provides a rigorous program of undergraduate and graduate study that endorses an interdisciplinary and intercultural approach to art history of all periods and places.

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Graduates Funding

Director of Financial Aid:  Professor Kristopher Kersey

The UCLA Department of Art History offers four and five year funding packages to selected incoming students that consist of a combination of fellowships and Teaching Assistantships (currently $30,000 per year plus registration fees/tuition). Funding is subject to renewal each year and students are required to apply each year for support for the following year. This application provides critical training in writing grant applications, but also allows the student to assess his/her progress through the program. The Financial Aid Committee approves continued funding based on progress and performance in the program.

Dickson Fellowships – derived from a private endowment established by the widow of UC Regent Edward A. Dickson – are a major source of support for our graduate students and must be approved by a committee that includes faculty members from the Departments of Art History, English, History, and Philosophy.

Each year, we offer approximately twelve Teaching Assistantships, which are the basis for important training in the classroom. Typically, these become available after the first year of the program.

To access the Dickson Fellowship application and the Teaching Assistantship application, please click here .

In addition, we provide – in the  “ Means of Support for Continuing Students” document  – a list of department and university-level funds awarded on a competitive basis for such things as summer grants and research and travel support.

Students are encouraged to apply for one-year Graduate Research Mentorships and Graduate Summer Research Mentorships during their first or second year in the program.  Applications for these awards can be accessed through the Graduate Division .

The Diane C. Brouillette Fellowship provides funding, including a year of research abroad, to students working towards a Ph.D. in French Medieval Art and Architecture in the UCLA Department of Art History.

Graduate Studies

The Department of Art’s M.F.A curriculum fosters the development of a sustained artistic practice through exploration, experimentation, and intensive studio work and study. Opened in Fall 2019, the UCLA Margo Leavin Graduate Art Studios provide individual and communal work spaces for M.F.A Art students with a design that considers the nature of artistic practice today and can evolve to anticipate change.

The six areas of study—Ceramics, Interdisciplinary Studio, New Genres, Painting and Drawing, Photography, and Sculpture—are supplemented by contemporary critical theory seminars. Opportunities to investigate areas beyond one's concentration are encouraged.

The Ceramics Area supports art practices in which material experimentation with clay propels critical thinking and work across Disciplines, including clay-based elements in performance, video and installation.

Interdisciplinary Studio

The Interdisciplinary Studio Area combines artistic production and focused research to support the development of site- and debate-specific forms of critical cultural engagement that extend beyond the framework of individual studio practice.

Graduate students in the New Genres Area are exposed to the theoretical frameworks, historical precedents and current examples of moving image, sound, performance, installation, hybrid, and emerging art forms in combination with continued independent practice, experimentation, and critique.

Painting and Drawing

Within the Painting and Drawing Area, graduate students are encouraged to examine and explore all the formal and conceptual possibilities offered within the discipline, while continuing to refine their own personal modes of expression.

Photography

Graduate students in the Photography Area are encouraged to experiment and strengthen their individual practices of making works of art using photographs and to critically examine the historical and contemporary role photographic imagery and objects hold in society.

Sculpture's basis is the exploration of three-dimensional contemporary expression where questions about context and culture at large inform every Sculpture candidate’s studies.

Headed by a faculty of internationally recognized artists and complemented by numerous visiting lecturers, the Department of Art at UCLA is committed to professional art training within the context of a great liberal arts university.

Independent studio work is at the core of the M.F.A Art curriculum, and the low faculty-student ratio facilitates regular one-on-one instruction. All of the department's courses aim to instill an understanding of and appreciation for the visual arts and their contributions to the history of cultural development and change. Current critical and theoretical thought is the focus of the Seminar in Art (Art C280), and a wide range of contemporary issues are addressed in the Visiting Artists Lecture Series. In addition, group critique and peer review are integral components of the program. Reviews of graduate work in the winter and spring quarters serve as a forum for critique and discussion with the entire faculty. Students may choose from a diverse group of electives and can take classes in other departments within and outside the School of the Arts and Architecture. Regular interaction between the studio and the classroom creates a close-knit intellectual community that furthers critical thinking and creative growth.

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• UCLA Graduate Division
• UCLA Graduate Division: Program Requirements for Art M.F.A
• UCLA General Catalog, Department of Art

Ready to join us at the UCLA Department of Art?

57th Annual UCLA Art History Graduate Symposium

October 21 @ 10:00 am – 4:30 pm

Join us at the 57th Annual UCLA Art History Department’s Graduate Symposium on Friday, October 21, 2022. This year’s theme is entitled Figuring Space and we are excited to host Keynote Speaker Professor Kailani Polzak, Ph.D.

For more information and to register to attend, please click here:

https://figuringspace.wordpress.com/event-and-registration-info/

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Fully Funded PhD Programs in Art History

As part of my series on  How to Fully Fund Your PhD , I provide a list of universities that offer fully funded PhD programs in Art History. Through a PhD in Art History, you could work as an Art Director, Writers and Author, Postsecondary Art Teacher, curator, and many more.

Fully funded PhD programs provide a funding package for full-time students that includes full tuition remission and an annual stipend or salary for the three to the six-year duration of the student’s doctoral studies. Funding is typically offered in exchange for graduate teaching and research work that is complementary to your studies. Not all universities provide full funding to their doctoral students, which is why I recommend researching the financial aid offerings of all the potential Ph.D. programs in your academic field, including small and lesser-known schools both in the U.S. and abroad.

You can also find several external fellowships in the  ProFellow Database  for graduate and doctoral study, as well as dissertation research, fieldwork, language study, and summer work experience.

Would you like to receive the full list of more than 1000+ fully funded programs in 60 disciplines? Get your copy of our FREE Directory of Fully Funded Graduate Programs and Full Funding Awards !

PhD Programs in Art History Offering Full Funding

University of california, los angeles.

(Los Angeles, CA): The UCLA Department of Art History offers four and five-year funding packages to selected incoming students that consist of a combination of fellowships and Teaching Assistantships (currently $28,000 per year plus registration fees/tuition).

The University of Chicago

(Chicago, IL): The annual stipend for art history Ph.D. students is $32,000 over 12 months. Students also receive full tuition and health insurance premium coverage. Funding is granted to students in good academic standing for the duration of the program. Art history Ph.D. students typically serve as teaching assistants. Research and conference travel grants are available at various stages.

Columbia University

(New York, NY): All admitted students receive full funding, including tuition and stipend. Standard fellowships are for five years and involve teaching or other types of department service during at least three of the five years. Students are very often successful in obtaining further support from competitive fellowships offered by Columbia and other competitions.

Florida State University

(Tallahassee, FL): Doctoral applicants are automatically considered for teaching assistantships with full tuition waivers for a minimum of three years. Applicants may also be nominated by the department for prestigious University fellowships offered each year to a select number of incoming graduate students with outstanding scholastic records.

The Graduate Center, CUNY

(New York, NY): Nine students are admitted per year to the Ph.D. Program in Art History. Of these, seven will be awarded Graduate Center Fellowships (GCFs) and two will be awarded tuition-only Fellowships. The GCFs are a five-year package of $26,128 per year (including healthcare).

University of Minnesota

(Minneapolis, MN): All accepted students are guaranteed five years of funding through a combination of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and fellowships. Assistantships provide an annual stipend, a full-tuition scholarship, and health insurance. Students who win external fellowships are allowed to save a year of their UMN funding for a sixth year.

Northwestern University

(Evanston, IL): The Graduate Program in Art History offers a full-time Ph.D. and the Department provides its Ph.D. students with full financial aid for five years as well as travel grants for conference presentations and archival research.

The University of Texas at Austin

(Austin, Texas): The faculty’s goal is to support all admitted Ph.D. students with a combination of Teaching Assistantships, Assistant Instructor positions, Graduate Research Assistant positions, and scholarship funds so they can earn their degree with as little outside cost as possible.

Tulane University

(New Orleans, LA): Students in the Ph.D. program are fully funded. The student may wish to seek additional funding from other sources to support graduate study, research travel, and hosting visiting lecturers.

Washington University in St.Louis

(Saint Louis, MO): Students accepted into the Ph.D. program who remain in good standing are guaranteed six years of full funding in the form of University Fellowships, with an annual stipend of $28,152 (2021-22) and full tuition remission. Advanced Ph.D. students may also offer summer courses through University College to gain valuable independent teaching experience.

Need some tips for the application process? See my article  How To Get Into a Fully Funded PhD Program: Contacting Potential PhD Advisors .

Also, sign up to discover and bookmark more than 1900 professional and academic fellowships in the  ProFellow database .

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Fully Funded PhD Programs , PhD in Art History

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General Catalog

UCLA Art History Graduate Symposium: Figuring Space

The 57th Annual UCLA Art History Graduate Symposium, Figuring Space, will explore formulations of space and its revolutionary nature as a medium, such as for Indigenous, diasporic, genderfluid, and anti-racist imaginaries in art historical inquiries.

Friday, Oct. 21, 10 a.m.

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Read the Hammer's full COVID-19 safety guidelines . Ticketing:  Admission is free. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis starting at 6:30 p.m. Member Benefit:  Members   receive priority ticketing until 15 minutes before the program.  Learn more about membership. Parking:  Parking is available under the museum. Rates are $7 for the first three hours with museum validation, and $3 for each additional 20 minutes, with a $20 daily maximum. There is a $7 flat rate after 6 p.m. on weekdays, and all day on weekends. Cash or credit card.

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Academic Programs at the Hammer Museum are supported by The Hearst Foundations and The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation.

Tuesday, May 21, 8 p.m.

Friday, May 31, 8 p.m.

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UCLA Graduate Programs

Graduate Program: History

UCLA's Graduate Program in History offers the following degree(s):

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Masters available on Doctoral track

With questions not answered here or on the program’s site (above), please contact the program directly.

History Graduate Program at UCLA 6265 Bunche Hall Box 951473 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1473

Visit the History’s faculty roster

COURSE DESCRIPTIONS

Visit the registrar's site for the History’s course descriptions

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MAJOR CODE: HISTORY

Art History Alumnus Paul Niell Named 2024–2025 Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellow

Congratulations to Art History alumnus, Paul Niell, Ph.D. (2008)

Congratulations to Art History alumnus, Paul Niell, Ph.D. (2008), who has received an appointment as a 2024–2025 Samuel H. Kress Senior Fellow with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. At UNM, Niell worked with Professor Ray Hernández-Durán, and Niell is currently Associate Professor of Art History at Florida State University where he teaches courses on Spanish Colonial Art, Architecture of the Colonial Caribbean, and Arts of Africa and the African Diaspora.

As a CASVA Senior Fellow, he will be conducting research for his next book project, tentatively titled, Thatched Dwellings, Urban Lives: The Bohío and the City in the Late Spanish Colonial Caribbean, which was the focus of a conference, The Forgotten Canopy, which Niell co-organized with UCLA scholar, Stella Nair, Ph.D.

Among his many publications include his first book, Urban Space as Heritage in Late Colonial Cuba: Classicism and Dissonance on the Plaza de Armas of Havana, 1754–1828 (2015) and the edited volume, Buen Gusto and Classicism in the Visual Cultures of Latin America, 1790–1910 (2013).

UNM Alumna Awarded Fulbright Research Grant to Bulgaria

Eleanora Edreva, MFA Art & Ecology 2023 alumna, along with three other recipients, has been granted a Fulbright Research Award.

Read More...

Art History Alumna, Suzanne McLeod, Ph.D. Presents Research at Bibliotheca Hertziana

Her talk will address what is believed to be the earliest depiction of Native Americans in European art...

Latest Release: ‘Julio Galán: Performative Transgression’ by Teresa Eckmann

Teresa Eckmann, UNM PhD Art History alumna, studied under emerita Associate Professor of Chicano Art...

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Banchero joins Zion Williamson (2019), Kyrie Irving (2011), Elton Brand (1999) and Art Heyman (1963) as Blue Devils to hear their names called to start off draft night.

After Duke, Kentucky has the next most top picks with three — Karl Anthony-Towns (2015), Anthony Davis (2012) and John Wall (2010).

📊 DRAFT DATA:  College basketball schools with the most NBA 1st-round draft picks, all time

The Cleveland Cavaliers have selected first overall a league-high six times, most recently selecting Andrew Wiggins out of Kansas in 2014. The Cavs have also taken Anthony Bennett out of UNLV (2013), Irving (2011), LeBron James from St. Vincent-St. Mary High School (2003), Brad Daugherty of UNC (1986) and Austin Carr of Notre Dame (1971).

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Stuart Weitzman School of Design 102 Meyerson Hall 210 South 34th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104

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Weitzman welcomes new faculty and department chairs for 2024-2025 academic year.

Top row, left to right: Michelle Delk, Jules Dingle, Xiaoxia (Summer) Dong, Andrew Holder; Bottom row, left to right: Xiaojiang Li, Ani Liu, Jessica Varner

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Michael Grant [email protected] 215.898.2539

Weitzman welcomes seven new members of the standing and associated faculty in the 2024 - 2025 Academic Year, subject to University approval, and two new department chairs.

“As communities across the US and abroad face imminent threats from climate change and social inequality, our newest faculty members share our school’s commitment to working across disciplines and cultural divides to make progress on both fronts,” said Fritz Steiner, dean and Paley Professor at Weitzman.

With decades of combined experience in practice and scholarship, this year’s new appointees represent all five of the school’s academic departments:

• Michelle Delk, Laurie Olin Professor of Practice, Department of Landscape Architecture
• Jules Dingle, Professor of Practice, Department of Historic Preservation
• Xiaoxia (Summer) Dong, Assistant Professor, Department of City & Regional Planning
• Andrew Holder, Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Architecture
• Xiaojiang Li, Assistant Professor, Master of Urban Spatial Analytics Program, Department of City & Regional Planning
• Ani Liu, Carrafiell Assistant Professor (Emerging Design), Department of Fine Arts
• Jessica Varner, Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture  

Sharon Hayes (left) and Megan Ryerson (right)

Sharon Hayes, professor of fine arts, has been named chair of the Department of Fine Arts, and Megan Ryerson, the UPS Chair of Transportation and professor of city and regional planning and electrical and systems engineering, has been named chair of the Department of City & Regional Planning. Hayes, a widely-exhibited video, performance and installation artist whose work is featured in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, joined the Weitzman faculty in the fall of 2015, following a seven-year tenure at The Cooper Union. Ryerson, an authority on transportation planning with a focus on aviation, joined the faculty in 2013. She served as the Weitzman School’s first associate dean for research and founded the Research Support Center; during her tenure, awarded grants grew by over 300%. Michelle Delk (Laurie Olin Professor of Practice, Department of Landscape Architecture) is a partner with Snøhetta based in New York City. She leads the Landscape Architecture practice in the Americas as a passionate advocate and designer of the public realm. Her work is evocative of a foundational premise shared with Snøhetta: to create places that enhance the positive relationships between people and their environments. She encourages innovative approach­es to collaboration that are non-hierarchi­cal and trans-disciplinary. Both aspirational and pragmatic, she seeks to discover and expand the urban landscape vernacular, striving to express the subtleties of place through the incongruities of memory, envi­ronment, and social perceptions. Delk is a Fellow with the American Society of Landscape Architects, a board member with New York’s Urban Design Forum, and member of the Cultural Landscape Foundation Stewardship Council, and actively supports a variety of landscape advocacy organizations, cura­torial projects, and academic institutions.

Jules Dingle (Professor of Practice, Department of Historic Preservation) is a co-founding Partner of DIGSAU, a Philadelphia-based architecture practice recognized internationally for thought leadership and design excellence. Collectively they have a broad view of architecture, how it is made, who makes it, and who benefits. Their work is notable for an unwavering optimism that novel design solutions exist for every problem. As a design principal and a critical thought leader, Dingle focuses on how the firm’s work embraces innovation and engages both the practical and the profound. His interest in embodied carbon reduction and overall resourcefulness shapes a vision of preservation as a creative pursuit that engages artifacts of consequence alongside new ideas of adaptive reuse. He believes that questions of equity and the environment encourage a more nuanced way of thinking about preservation that provides continuity with the past, simultaneously recognizing that an important part of that continuity is change. This includes not just physical material and objects, but also questions of use and the cultural, ecological, and economic forces that affect community self-determination.  

Xiaoxia (Summer) Dong  (Assistant Professor, Department of City & Regional Planning) has been a research associate and lecturer   in the Department of City & Regional Planning at Weitzman since 2021. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. His research examines traffic safety and the impact of new transportation technologies and services on travel behavior and the built environment. He has published peer-reviewed articles on user perceptions of driverless buses, mode preferences for ride-share and transit, road safety, and driver’s education for adolescents in the US. Prior to academia, Summer was a transportation planner at Fehr & Peers, where he participated in first/last mile studies, transportation master plans, and other projects for a wide range of clients in the public and private sectors.

Sharon Hayes (Professor and Chair, Department of Fine Arts) is an artist who uses video, performance, sound and public sculpture to expose specific intersections between history, politics and speech, to unspool reductive historical narratives and to re-ignite dormant pathways through which counter-understandings of the contemporary political condition can be formed. In her work, she lingers in the grammars–linguistic, affective and sonic–through which political resistance appears. Her most recent work Ricerche: four , a two-channel video installation composed of footage from three group interviews with queer and trans elders in Philadelphia, Dowelltown, Tennessee and Los Angeles, is currently being exhibited in the 2024 Whitney Biennial. Hayes has had numerous solo exhibitions, including at n.b.k. (Neue Berliner Kunstverein) in Berlin, Germany (2022), Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden (2019), Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York (2014), the Tanya Leighton Gallery in Berlin (2013), the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (2012), and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid (2012). Her work has also been exhibited at the Venice Biennale (2013), The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. She is the recipient of numerous awards and grants.

Andrew Holder (Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Architecture) is both a practitioner and a theorist of contemporary architecture. He is co-principal of The LADG, an award-winning architectural practice based in Los Angeles, where his design work focuses on using empathy to communicate the intellectual logic of buildings to audiences in ways that can be grasped viscerally. Recent projects include an installation at LACMA, a series of houses in Los Angeles, a retreat in rural Maine, and studies for the densification of single-family neighborhoods. Holder’s writing similarly connects architecture’s form and physical presence to its participation in culture and the history of ideas, most recently in the book Inscriptions: Architecture Before Speech , co-edited with K. Michael Hays. He is a frequent lecturer and guest critic at institutions across the United States. He has held teaching appointments at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he served as MArch I Program Director, the University of Michigan, the University of Queensland, UCLA, SCI-Arc, and Otis College of Art and Design.

Xiaojiang Li (Assistant Professor, Master of Urban Spatial Analytics Program, Department of City & Regional Planning) held positions as an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Urban Studies, Temple University, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Senseable City Lab, MIT. His research focuses on urban analytics, geospatial data science, urban resilience to climate change, landscape and environmental planning, and urban environmental health. He has proposed to use Google Street View and machine learning for urban landscape studies and developed the Treepedia project, which aims to map and quantify streetscapes for cities around the world. He has received support from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and Microsoft to investigate the impacts of extreme heat on pedestrians and heat vulnerability across different neighborhoods and racial/ethnic groups. His research aims to provide a better understanding of urban socio-environmental systems and explore how data, science, design, and planning help us to tackle socio-environmental challenges. He received his PhD from the Department of Geography, University of Connecticut.

Ani Liu (Carrafiell Assistant Professor, Emerging Design, Department of Fine Arts) is an internationally exhibiting artist working at the intersection of art and science. Her work examines the reciprocal relationships between science and technology and their influence on human subjectivity, culture, and identity; reoccurring themes include gender politics, biopolitics, labor, simulation and sexuality. Liu’s work has been exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica, the Queens Museum Biennial, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Asian Art Museum, MIT Museum, MIT Media Lab, Mana Contemporary, Harvard University, and Shenzhen Design Society. She has taught at Penn since the fall of 2021 and previously taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Liu has a Master of Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and a Master of Science from MIT Media Lab. 

Megan Ryerson (Professor of City and Regional Planning and Electrical & Systems Engineering; UPS Chair; Chair, Department of City & Regional Planning) is an authority on transportation engineering and planning, with a focus on intercity transportation planning and urban transportation safety. She has written extensively on air transportation, including environmental impacts, economic development, and multimodal planning. In 2024, she was awarded a $6M NASA University Leadership Initiative award to study, develop, and deploy solutions for aviation system resilience. She founded and leads Weitzman’s Center for Safe Mobility, which focuses on the development of development of novel, human-centered transportation safety metrics as well as the evaluation of safety-focused policies. She has published over 65 peer-reviewed articles, won numerous awards for her scholarship and leadership, and counseled major airlines, cities, universities, airports and Port Authorities, and the Federal Aviation Administration. She is a committed educator dedicated to the advancement of women in transportation.

Jessica Varner (Assistant Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture) is a Getty/ACLS Fellow in the History of Art (2023-24) and is working with the University of Chicago Press on her forthcoming book, Chemical Desires: When the Chemical Industry Met Modern Design (1870-1970) . Her current research has received generous support from the Fulbright Program, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), National Science Foundation, Science History Institute, USC Society of Fellows, and the Graham Foundation. Her recent work includes articles, chapters, and book projects on chromium, drywall, toxicity, the EPA’s public history, synthetic chemicals in building materials, neurotoxins, and chemical modernity. Varner works collectively with the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI, co-founder of A People’s EPA (APE)) and Coming Clean to seek alternatives and repair in toxics. She has a PhD in History, Theory, Criticism of Art and Architecture from MIT and Master of Environmental Design and Master of Architecture from Yale.

Academic appointments are subject to review and approval by the School, provost, and the Board of Trustees.