Why Study Art History at USC?

The Department of Art History at USC offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs that are designed to prepare students for teaching, research, and curatorial careers.  It draws its strength from a dynamic and productive faculty in the fields of North American, Continental European, British, Mediterranean, Latin American, and Asian Art. Studying objects in their complex physical, cultural and intellectual contexts, our program is committed to a historically situated, materially engaged, and theoretically nuanced approach to art history and visual culture.

Private tour of Whitney Museum for AHIS 470 Maymester in New York

Undergraduate Studies

Art history combines the study of art with the study of culture. The undergraduate major provides general knowledge of the history of art and, through upper-division courses, specialized knowledge in a variety of areas.

AHIs Graduate student presenting at the Getty Graduate Symposium. 2022

Graduate Studies

USC’s department of Art History offers its doctoral degree in a wide range of fields of Western and Asian art history, from ancient to contemporary.  It is designed to prepare students for university teaching, research, and curatorial careers.

Students in Tutor Lounge

Prospective Ph.D. Students

USC is a diverse community of scholars in the heart of Los Angeles — a dynamic center for technology, health services, media and the arts.

Department Calendar

AHIS Calendar

News and Events

Students with USC Museums demystifies art

Expansive Presentation of Roy Lichtenstein

May 26, 2024 11:00 am The Broad Museum
The Broad Museum, Los Angeles

Sculpting with Light: Contemporary Artists and Holography

August 20, 2024 11:00 am Getty Museum

Featured Faculty

2023-2024

Congratulations to Professor Sonya Lee! This year’s Raubenheimer awardee!

Sonya Lee has been named one of this year’s Raubenheimer awardees, given by Dornsife for excellence in scholarship, teaching, and service.

The Department of Art History welcomes Assistant Professor, Luke Fidler

Professor Luke Fidler will join the department of Art History starting Fall 2023.  A specialist of twelfth-century North German and Southern Scandinavian sculpture, Fidler is interested in questions of the sculptural, landscape, political and social order, and especially questions around embodied coercion. In addition to his scholarship on Medieval art, he is a curator of contemporary art, an active art critic, and an activist for prison education.

Hector Reyes on how math and art are closely linked in USC Dornsife video feature “The Mathematics of Art”

In this USC Dornsife video feature, mathematics and art may seem diametrically opposed, but there is creativity and beauty in both. USC Dornsife’s Felicia Tabing is a mathematician who approaches her field of study through a creative lens. USC Dornsife’s Enrique Martinez Celaya is a professor, artist and former physicist who uses his mathematical background to inspire his work. Together with Dornsife art historian Hector Reyes, the three examine how math and art are more closely linked than it appears.

Go to Video

Congratulations to Professor Vanessa Schwartz on project awarded FNRS for 2023-2026 “Globetrotting: Touring Round the World (1869-1914)”

Professor Vanessa Schwartz is a co-PI on an international, interdisciplinary, multi-year project directed by Jean-François Staszak, (Geography, University of Geneva) – and the project, “Globetrotting: Touring Round the World (1869-1914),” was selected for funding of close to one million Swiss Francs by Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique (Suisse) (FNRS) for 2023-2026.

Find out more

Undergraduate Student Spotlight

    Jina Umakanthan

    A USC Dornsife Art History Major has been offered the 2024 Joseph F. McCrindle Curatorial Internship in European Paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

    From Assistant Professor Luke Fidler,  Art History: 

    “Jina Umakanthan, who is writing an honors thesis with me, has just been awarded the Joseph McCrindle Curatorial Internship in European Paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. I’m extremely proud of Jina, who is an outstanding art historian in the making.”

    View of water fountain and front of USC Doheny Memorial Library
    View of water fountain and front of USC Doheny Memorial Library

    Ph.D Student Spotlight

      Margot Yale

      Congratulations to Margot Yale!

      Margot Yale has received the Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for the 2024–25 academic year and the Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art for the 2024–25 academic year.

      Olivia Armandroff

      Congratulations to Olivia Armandroff! She has received a George Gurney and Predoctoral Fellowship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for 2024-25 and a Crystal Bridges Tyson’s Scholar Fellowship for 2024-25, as well as a residential grant at the Yale Center for British Art.

      Elissa Watters

      Elissa Watters has been selected as a recipient of the General Education Graduate Assistant Award!

      Eve Sperling

      Eve Sperling has been awarded a 2024 Kress Fellowship for German immersion at Middlebury Language School for this summer.

      Weronika Malek-Lubawksi

      Weronika Malek-Lubawksi has won an NCHA Graduate Student Fellowship to attend the International Congress of History of Art (CIHA) in Lyon in 2024, and the Stephen F. Cohen-Robert C. Tucker Dissertation Completion Fellowship from the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Association, 2024-25

      Ashton Cooper

      Congratulations to Ashton Cooper for successfully defending her dissertation:  “How Hard to Give Form to Oneself Honestly”: Liberation Politics and the Remaking of Painterly Expression in 1970s New York

      Anne LaGatta

      Congratulations to Anne LaGatta for successfully defending her dissertation: “The Most Beautiful and Enduring Images”: Visual Culture in the Principate of Tiberius (14-37 CE).

      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil
      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil
      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil
      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil
      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil
      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil
      The Belated Party on Mansfield Mountain Artist: Jerome B. Thompson (1814–1886) Date: 1858 Culture: American Medium: Oil

      Art History Ph.D Alumni

        Natalia Lauricella, Ph.D

        Natalia Lauricella has been appointed Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs at the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts at the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco.

        Yoonah Hwang, Ph.D

        Congratulations will take a position of Assistant Professor of Art History at Pepperdine University.

        Isabel Wade, Ph.D

        Congratulations on her position as an USC Dornsife Teaching Fellow, Los Angeles, CA.

        https://dornsife.usc.edu/profile/isabel-wade/

        Local Area Resources

        USC’s program takes great advantage of our location within the vibrant cultural environment of Los Angeles. undergraduate fieldtrips and Graduate seminars are regularly held on site or work with collections in area museums including the including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), the Getty Center, the Getty Villa and the USC Fisher Museum of Art among others.

        Los Angeles Museums

        USC Museums, Archives and Special Collections

        Contact

        People

        Art History Main Office

        USC Dornsife Department of Art History
        3501 Trousdale Parkway, THH 355
        Los Angeles, CA 90089-0351

        (213) 740-4552

        Chair of Art History

        Amy Knight Powell
        Associate Professor of Art History
        Interim Chair, Dept. of Art History, Spring 2024
        akpowell@usc.edu

         

         

        Staff

        Elizabeth Massari
        Office Manager
        massari@usc.edu

        Tracey L. Marshall
        Administrative Assistant II
        traceyma@usc.edu