Art & Art History

Visual literacy is essential for informed participation and innovation within local and global cultures.

Oxy’s Art & Art History department combines two disciplines, with majors choosing an emphasis in either Studio Art or Art History. Taking full advantage of Oxy’s Los Angeles location, the program draws on the diversity and richness of the city’s world-class art museums, galleries and research archives. The curriculum integrates field trips, community-based learning, site-specific projects and collaboration with artists and local arts organizations.

You’ll have opportunities for close interaction with department faculty, all actively exhibiting, publishing and/or curating professionals. Faculty can help you pursue grants for ambitious projects, international research and internships with dynamic arts institutions. Through Wanlass Artist in Residence, a semester-long residency program, you can collaborate with a professional artist on campus. Through a special partnership, you can take courses at Pasadena’s nationally-ranked Art Center College of Design. You can further enrich your academic experience by studying abroad in cities like Paris, Rome, and Athens or countries like New Zealand and Indonesia.

The department’s curriculum prepares you to for careers in art and art history as well as other professional work in a broad range of visually and culturally oriented fields. Majors regularly attend graduate programs in fine arts, film and media studies, and art history. You might pursue curatorial work or jobs in museums, libraries, archives and other non-profit institutions. Other careers include architecture, design, the tech industry, or work at the intersections of art, medicine and law.

Mckenzie Locke headshot

When I arrived at Oxy, I felt really engaged by the variety of ways that each professor in the department shaped my knowledge about the subject. And I felt compelled by discussions surrounding contemporary art that redefined what I had initially considered art and art history.

Mckenzie Locke
Art History major; Los Angeles, CA

Meet Our Faculty

What Our Graduates Are Doing

Ph.D., art history, Princeton University

Jessica Maxwell
2006

Senior Vice President, Disney Imagineering

Joe Rohde
1977

Engineering Manager, New Relic, Inc

Dennis McMillan
2006

MFA, painting/printmaking, Yale University

Zoe Walsh
2011

Assistant Professor, Otis College of Art and Design

Tucker Neel
2003

MFA, writing, California Institute of the Arts

Stephen Van Dyck
2006

M.Arch, Columbia University; Architectural Designer, Gensler

Ricardo Vega
2009

M.Arch, U-Penn; Co-director, foreground design agency

Aroussiak Gabrielian
2004

MFA, art, Yale University

Kenturah Davis
2002
Contact Art & Art History
Weingart 113