• Special Programs in Visual Art Studies
• Special Programs in Art History
• Special Programs in Design
• Special Programs in Studio Art

Special Programs

Lecture Series

Lecture Series: Art Education
These lectures are free and open to the public.

Lecture Series: Art History
These lectures are free and open to the public.

Lecture Series: Design
Nationally and internationally known designers and critics visit the department every fall and spring semester to lecture, meet with graduate students for seminars and critiques, and run workshops with undergraduate students. Lectures are free and open to the public.

Lecture Series: Lectures on Art of the Black Diaspora
This series is an outreach effort that promotes intellectual interest in and scholarship surrounding art produced in the African Diaspora. It explores the notions of diaspora and cultural and ethnic dispersal. The program not only emphasizes the growing importance of diasporic studies and of Africa and the African Diaspora in contemporary art but also underscores the increasing significance of these fields at the University of Texas at Austin.

Lecture Series: Viewpoint
Annually the department presents Viewpoint, a series of concentrated visits by distinguished curators, scholars and critics. This program is comprised of several multiple-day residencies throughout the spring semester. This format enables these leading commentators and critics to fully share their perspectives from the diverse and multifaceted contemporary art world. The lecturers are always brought in pairs and present various programs including public lectures, seminars, and individual studio critiques with graduate students. Lectures are free and open to the public.

Lecture Series: Visiting Artists
Internationally known artists visit the department every fall semester to give lectures and to meet with graduate students for seminars and critiques. Lectures are free and open to the public.

Student Organizations

AIGA: American Institute of Graphic Artists-Austin Chapter
A student run organization focused on investigating the career and educational opportunities of its members, and to plan events and engage the larger campus and Austin community through client based projects. Membership is open to any UT Austin student.

CANVAS: Capitol Area Network for Visual Arts Studies
The Capitol Area Network for Visual Art Studies incorporates an official network for visual art studies majors to help charities, raise money, and to have social outings. CANVAS has satellite membership in the Texas Art Education Association. The group plans fundraisers that incorporate our personal artwork or to raise interest in the arts, and provides for general networking, the exchange of artistic ideas and lesson plans, and invites guest speakers for art education.

Center Space Project
Center Space Project is the student organization of the Visual Arts Center. Entirely student-run, the group curates the Center Space in the VAC and organizes film screenings, events and a student publication. Center Space Project works collaboratively with fellow students, faculty, alumni and visiting artists to create engaging shows and programs, promoting a strong student presence in the VAC. Through its activities in the Center Space, the group seeks to link the student body to the larger Austin art community and provide an accessible model for students initiating their artistic careers.

Design Student Association
A student run organization for directing design education and academic-based community interaction via interdisciplinary interaction and networking. This group plans guest speakers, special trips, project portals, and group meetings to support their interests within design and communication.

GSAHA: Graduate Student Art History Association
The objectives of the Graduate Student Art History Association are to encourage and develop relations between M.A. and Ph.D. candidates, faculty, visiting scholars, alumni, and other professionals in the fields; to provide a forum through which graduate students may openly address issues related to their experience within the Department of Art and Art History; and to foster an alliance with other graduate students within the university.

PAHSA: Pre-Columbian Art History Student Association
The Pre-Columbian Art History Association aims to advance investigations of Pre-Columbian art historical issues. Membership is open to any UT Austin student or faculty interested in Pre-Columbian art historical issues. PAHSA sponsors a yearly academic conference entitled Art History of the Ancient Americas.

UAHA: Undergraduate Art History Association
The Undergraduate Art History Association was created to promote the visual arts, to investigate career and educational opportunities of its members, to plan events and museum tours, and to establish a dialogue between all four divisions of The Department.

Centers

Casa Herrera
Casa Herrera, an academic center located in Antigua, Guatemala and run by the Department of Art and Art History, facilitates academic investigations into the art, culture, and writing of Mesoamerica.

Center for the Study of Modernism
The interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Modernism at UT Austin serves as an umbrella to focus and augment graduate study in the art of the modern period, from the eighteenth century to the present and across the sub-disciplines of critical theory, history of criticism, intellectual history, social history, feminist studies, history of science and technology, media studies, institutional history, and semiotics.

CLAVIS: The Center for Latin American Visual Studies
The Center for Latin American Visual Studies (CLAVIS), a collaboration between the Department of Art and Art History and the Blanton Museum of Art, is a focal point at the University of Texas for the advanced understanding of modern and contemporary art between the Americas.

The Mesoamerica Center
The Mesoamerica Center aims to facilitate knowledge and learning about Mesoamerican cultures and peoples, highlighting the interdisciplinary strengths of many faculty and students at UT Austin. Its primary focus is on the arts, languages, and archaeology of Mesoamerican indigenous cultures.

Visual Arts Center
The Visual Arts Center (VAC) is positioned as a place for the intersection of art education and art evolution, in which members of a diverse art community have the opportunity to conduct ongoing experiments in visual expression. Part of the Department of Art and Art History and comprising 25,000 square feet among five distinct galleries, the VAC draws together students, faculty, alumni, guest artists, and creative voices from around the world in a year-round schedule of exhibitions and public programs.

Conferences

D.J. Sibley Family Conference on World Traditions of Culture and Art
Under the auspices of UT Austin, through a generous endowment from the D.J. Sibley family, this recurring symposium fosters the interdisciplinary interaction of research scholars currently working in the art, archaeology and iconography of pre-Columbian cultures, and their relation to other world art traditions.

Eleanor Greenhill Symposium
The Eleanor Greenhill Symposium is an annual event that provides an opportunity for art history graduate students to present their research to the larger departmental and campus community.

The Maya Meetings at Texas
The Maya Meetings at Texas are designed to bring scholars and interested individuals together once a year to study and explore a single theme in Mayan art and writing. The Meetings have featured lectures, forums, research workshops, and teaching practicums. A core component of the meetings centers around an open and experimental atmosphere that promotes collaboration among representatives from all over the globe, including the significant involvement of indigenous Mayan peoples.

Research and Scholarly Programs

AP @ UT Fine Arts: Advanced Placement Summer Institute
The Advanced Placement Summer Institute for high school fine arts teachers is sanctioned by the College Board and utilizes College Board approved “Consultants” (instructional leaders). The program offers one week professional training in five AP contents: AP Music Theory, AP Art History, AP 3D Studio Art Portfolio, AP 2D & Drawing Studio Art Portfolio, Introduction to Pre-AP and AP Studio Art Portfolios. The Department and College also provides for UT faculty guest lectures, presentations, and demonstrations. The AP Summer Institute serves to improve the quality and rigor of high school fine arts education while improving support and connectedness with high school fine arts students through their participating teachers. The first AP Summer Institute was held in July 2002. This year is our fifth Summer Institute and we continue to average 65–70 total participants each summer. The Institute is organized and run by Senior Lecturer Fred Woody, Coordinator of Student Field Experiences for the Visual Art Studies teacher certification program.

Printmaking Convergence
The intent of Printmaking Convergence is to highlight and strengthen personal and professional connections among students, the various printmaking studios, collectors, curators, critics, journalists and artists of the printmaking community in Austin, at the University of Texas at Austin and beyond. Our mission of the Printmaking Convergence Program is to bring focus of the richness, challenges and the pleasures of the fine art print to the student body and others at the University of Texas, and in partnership with the International Print Center New York, to our local, regional, national and international constituencies. The Guest Artist in Printmaking Program is an integral component of the Printmaking Convergence. It is an annual visiting artist program that takes place in the printmaking studios of the Department of Art and Art History. The educational goal of GAPP is to take advantage of the inherent collaborative, and more communal nature of printmaking and to use these characteristics as a unique teaching tool.

Greater Tomorrow Youth Art Program
The Greater Tomorrow Youth Art Program provides East Austin youth in grades 4–12 the opportunity to learn the social, cultural, historical, and personal importance of the arts during summer vacation. While engaging participants in collaborative, multidisciplinary arts projects under the direction of professional artists, musicians, actors, and dancers, the program employs a curriculum and educational philosophy that promotes personal growth through age-appropriate, socio-cultural art production and enrichment activities. Student artwork produced during the program culminates in a public exhibition open to The University community and the general public. The program is conducted at The Department's Creative Research Laboratory and was created by Dr. Christopher Adejumo.

Learning Tuscany: Art and Culture in Italy
The Learning Tuscany program exposes deserving students to art and culture first-hand. Students are given the opportunity to be ambassadors from Texas, the United States and UT Austin, sharing their experiences with students and citizens of Italy. The program focuses on the landscapes of Tuscany in order to consider what defines particular places and the ways we represent them.

Permanent Seminar in Latin American Art
Focusing on Latin American art, the permanent seminar is an open-ended research space dedicated to the creative production of knowledge; participation includes graduate students, artists, art historians, curators and critics from UT and from Latin America.

Portfolio in Museum Studies
Through a set of thematically related graduate courses, this portfolio program is meant to promote cross–disciplinary scholarship and study by bringing together faculty and students from a variety of disciplines whose interests and training transcend the boundaries of traditional academic disciplines.

The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection
An active student study collection, the Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection is a comprehensive accumulation of wood type manufactured and used for printing in America during the nineteenth century. This collection was amassed by Kelly, a noted design educator and historian, as the center piece of his seminal text American Wood Type, 1828–1900: Notes on the Evolution of Decorated and Large Types and Comments on Related Trades of the Period (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co., 1969.) This type represents a fundamental part of American heritage, the building blocks that were used to define American visual culture during the 19th century.