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The Department of Art History offers programs leading to the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy. The department offers studies in the history of art from ancient to modern times, with special strength on the graduate level in American art and in European art from the Renaissance through the modern eras. Cooperative arrangements with Bryn Mawr College and the University of Pennsylvania permit students to take courses at both institutions. Other arrangements with various institutions enable students to work with original objects and documents and to arrange, under faculty and museum staff supervision, exhibitions on a variety of subjects. The University Gallery, located on the campus, has a collection of about 6,000 objects for teaching and student research as well as providing opportunities for organization of exhibitions. The collections of Gertrude Käsebier photographs and Abraham Walkowitz paintings and drawings, e.g., are the largest in existence. Periodically, art history graduate seminars have contributed to the research for, and organization of, exhibitions at such museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, as well as the University Gallery.
Resources of the department include an extensive slide collection, the Decimal Index of the Art of the Netherlands, the "Illustrated Bartsch," the Wayne Andrews photographic archive of American architecture, a cumulative index of dissertations and theses in American art, and a photographic Index of American Sculpture. The University Library includes the Esther I. Schwartz Collection in the American Decorative Arts and special collections of books on museology and the conservation of works of art, as well as the George M.A. Hanfmann Professional Library of Ancient Art, the E.P. Richardson Library, and the Lloyd and Edith Havens Goodrich-Albert Pinkham Ryder Archive. There is also a collection of books and ephemera on Italian Futurism.
Another university resource is the Center for Historic Architecture and Design (CHAD), a multidisciplinary research and public service group exploring the evolution of historic architecture, engineering, and the built environment. Based in the College of Human Resources, Education and Public Policy, CHAD is cosponsored by the departments of Art History, History, and Geography, the College of Engineering, and the Museum Studies Program, American Studies Program, and the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture. CHAD is the first American university center in this field recognized by the Department of the Interior. Graduate students in art history may pursue a graduate specialization both in architectural history and in historic preservation and may qualify for CHAD grants, internships, and research assistantships.
The Winterthur Museum Library, open to graduate students in art history, is especially strong in American art and in sources of design and both social history and British artistic backgrounds. It also contains the Waldron Phoenix Belknap, Jr., Research Library of American Painting and the Joseph Downs Manuscript Collection.
The nearby Delaware Art Museum
includes a comprehensive collection of American paintings, sculpture, and
prints from about 1800 to the present day, the Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft
English Pre-Raphaelite Collection, the John Sloan Collection, the Howard
Pyle Collection, and the N.C. Wyeth papers.
REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSION
Graduates of the program have entered careers in college and university teaching, museum curatorship and administration, national and state arts agencies, architectural preservation and historic sites, librarianship, and research. Although it is desirable for candidates to have majored in the history of art, well-qualified applicants from other fields will be considered. Applicants are required to take the Aptitude Test of the Graduate Record Examination.
Applications for admission in the fall semester must be in the Office
of Graduate Studies by January 15. Students requesting fellowships or assistantships
beginning in the fall semester must have their completed applications in
the Office of Graduate Studies prior to January 15. See also the
chapter "Admission Information" in this
catalog.
Admission to the graduate program in Art History is an academic judgment
matter. Students are admitted on the basis of consideration of a combination
of all of the following materials: a writing sample; a personal statement;
letters of recommendation; undergraduate and, if relevant, graduate records;
and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. Normally, for admission the
minimum combined score for the verbal and quantitative portions of the
GRE is 1050, and the minimum undergraduate grade point average (GPA) is
3.00. However, achievement of that minimum score and GPA does not by any
means guarantee admission, as the majority of admitted students have considerably
higher scores and averages. On the other hand, under special or unusual
circumstances, other strengths may obviate the need to meet one or both
of those stated minima.
FINANCIAL AID
Fellowships, teaching assistantships, and research assistantships are
available for graduate students in art history. For more information, see
the chapter "Financial Aid" in this catalog,
or contact the chair of the department.
REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREES
Requirements for the Master of Arts degree consist of a minimum of 24 hours of course work, a master's thesis (research essay), and a language examination (either French, German, or Italian). Individual programs will be arranged according to each student's needs in consultation with a faculty adviser. With the adviser's consent, students may substitute a limited number of courses in such related fields as anthropology, American studies, history, literature, urban affairs, and philosophy. Normally, the degree requirements may be completed in two years of full-time study.
Students will normally complete the M.A. degree before applying for
candidacy to the Ph.D. program. Students who are accepted with an M.A.
degree from an accredited art history program may enter the Ph.D. program
directly. One major field and one minor field, in which students will be
examined after completing 24 hours of course work, will be chosen from
the following areas: Ancient, Medieval, Italian Renaissance, Northern Renaissance,
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, and
American, with additional minors available in the History of Photography,
Decorative Arts, Graphic Arts, History of Book Illumination, and History
of Architecture. Upon petition, minor fields may be tailored to the student's
special interests. Candidates for the Ph.D. must pass written examinations
in German and either French or Italian. Candidates then produce a dissertation,
which is defended in an oral examination.
RELATION TO THE M.A. IN EARLY AMERICAN CULTURE
At the University of Delaware, there are two avenues to the historical study of the visual arts: (1) The M.A. and Ph.D. program in the Department of Art History; and (2) the M.A. in Early American Culture sponsored by the Winterthur Program, a multidisciplinary graduate course of study offered cooperatively by the University and the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum. Students interested primarily in studying American decorative arts in a material culture context should consider the Winterthur Program in Early American Culture described in this catalog. The Department of Art History is concerned with the fine arts (painting, sculpture, and architecture) and with the decorative arts in that context, with study of the decorative arts at the Ph.D. level especially encouraged.
At the Ph.D. level, the department offers specialization in the decorative arts through courses at Winterthur, and students may take their minor field examination and elect to write their dissertations in this area. These students have access to the collections and teaching staff at Winterthur. Master's theses may also be written on the subject.
