DEPARTMENT OF ART & ART HISTORY
The Department of Art and Art History demonstrates its strong commitment to its existence as a union of Studio Artists and Art Historians by providing an atmosphere where creativity and intellectual discourse can grow. While an increasingly rare alliance, the department recognizes the benefits that are gained through the integration of the making of art with its interpretation and history.
The department offers BFA and BAFA undergraduate degrees in Studio Art and a BAFA in Art History. MFA degrees are offered on the graduate level in Studio, and MA and PhD degrees are possible in Art History. In all of the work leading to these degrees, the importance of the arts as communication, in the past, the present and the future, is pivotal. This understanding is the keystone of our programs, and it is the foundation for our primary goals to expose students to the richness of art through the practices and techniques of making art; an awareness and practice of critical thought; and the practices and methods for understanding the history of art.
Curricula in the Department of Art and Art History reflect both necessary bases of knowledge in separate disciplines or areas of expertise and also encourage and, indeed, require cross-disciplinary study. We recognize that it is our responsibility to help students to develop critical thinking abilities and become effective writers about art, whether their own or that of others. We are dedicated to the exploration of art not only that which has been long established within the paradigm of the Western-focused canon of Art History but also to recognize the importance of artistic expressions that do not fit or are not so readily included within such frameworks.
Few departments at UNM over the last two decades have been ranked so frequently in the top 25 nationally as has the Department of Art and Art History. The MFA program, which granted its first degree in 1964, continues to be one of the more highly regarded terminal degree programs nationally in this field. Studio Arts is comprised of the areas of Photography, Painting and Drawing, Printmaking, Sculpture, Ceramics, and Electronic Arts. In recent years, Art and Ecology and Land Arts have emerged, building upon a long history of the D. H. Lawrence Ranch summer program conducted by department faculty in Taos and the department’s interest in the unique qualities of artistic practice in the landscape of New Mexico. Our program in photography is consistently ranked among the strongest in the country.
The programs in Art History enjoy a prestigious place internationally as well as nationally. Among the oldest in the western part of the US, the art history program began at UNM in 1949. One strength of Art History is Arts of the Americas which includes four faculty with a focus in modern Latin America, as well as Pre-Columbian, and Spanish Colonial art with another two specialists in Native American art. Arts of the Modern Age, our second area of concentration, overlaps and informs Arts of the Americas but also brings its own additions in such areas as the History of Photography, the History of Graphic Arts, and Modern Art and Architecture.
