The Department of Art History and Art offers opportunities to study art history, to participate in a broad range of studio offerings and to engage in pre-professional museum training. The Bachelor of Arts degree is granted in art history and in pre-architecture. In addition, the department offers graduate programs leading to the degrees of Master of Arts in art history, in art history and museum studies; and the Doctor of Philosophy in art history.
All art programs are considerably enhanced by close cooperation with and access to the facilities of cultural institutions located in University Circle, in particular The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Cleveland Institute of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland.
The Cleveland Museum of Art/CWRU Art History Program has been in existence since 1967. The museum’s curators serve as adjunct faculty, and graduate research projects under their direction often result in exhibitions and publications. The museum Studies course and internships provide experience in curatorial practices, connoisseurship, conservation, design, and museum education, and the program has a history of producing leaders in the museum field. Graduate students are exposed to both traditional and newer theoretically based art historical approaches in classes taught by faculty renowned for their expertise in a diversity of fields.
News
Lighting Demo In Art Studio
Some of the curriculum developments in the Photo Minor and purchasing some new lighting and camera equipment, we were able to teach lighting for the first time here at CWRU. The students were enthusiastically engaged in the process and it was equally rewarding for Intructor Jerry Birchfield. Here is a...
Reed O'Mara joined Prof. Gertsman at the Ornamented Membranes conference in Cologne, the home of the bone-lined Golden Chamber as well as of the amazing Schnutgen and Wallraf-Richartz collections. They subsequently traveled to see some fantastic sites and objects: to Aachen, to explore the Palatine Chapel and the extraordinary Praymobil exhibition...
Art History Graduate Students Present at AIA
Earlier this month, students in the Joint Program past and present made an impressive showing at the Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting in San Francisco.
Monsters, Humans, and Those In Between
Art Studio Ceramics Intructor Benjamin Lambert Exhibit
You are cordially invited to a lecture as part of the departmental seminar Wednesday, 25 Tevet 5786, January 14, 2026 at 16:00 (Israel time), on Zoom Human and Animalic Tongues in the Brussels Liturgical Pentateuch Luke Hester, Case Western Reserve University Click to Join: https://biu-ac-il.zoom.us/j/81750893434 Previous lectures are available on the Department of Jewish Art...
Join Prof. Elina Gertsman in her exploration of phantasmagorical images of matzah in medieval Hebrew manuscripts at the Ornamented Membranes conference. Held in hybrid format at the Auerbach Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Cologne, this conference tackles medieval spaces of transition and exclusion, permeable or semi-permeable...
We are delighted to announce that Zoe Appleby, Rebekkah Hart, Cecily Hughes, and Madeline Newquist defended their dissertation prospectuses with flying colors! Materiality and environment clearly rule the day here. Zoe's dissertation is provisionally titled "Earth, Water, Gems, and Lava: Eco-Materiality and Environmental Agency in the Medieval Mediterranean," while...
Adriel Meyer OAEA Outstanding Art Teacher Award
Congratuations to Art Studio instructor Adriel Meyer was recently awarded OAEA Outstanding Art Teacher Award at the OAEA annual conference in Columbus, Ohio.
Google Arts and Culture Page Live
A Google Arts & Culture digital exhibition focusing on the Getty Museum's Department of Manuscripts's first acquisition to include a female author was recently made its premier. The piece was written by PhD candidate in medieval art and Mellon Fellow Reed O'Mara. The manuscript is from the late fifteenth/early sixteenth...