MA Art History, Collections & Curating

Program Overview

The MA in Art History, Collections and Curating provides advanced training in art history, focusing on collections and curatorial practices. It combines rigorous scholarship with practical curatorial experience, preparing graduates for careers in academia, research, and the art world. Through a blend of lectures, seminars, and research, students gain a comprehensive understanding of art history, curation theory, and methodology, equipping them with the skills to analyze, critique, and interpret artworks and shape future art historical discourse.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The MA in Art History, Collections and Curating is a postgraduate program designed to provide advanced training in art history with a focus on collections and curatorial practice. It aims to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary for careers in academia, research, writing, and curatorship. The program combines academic scholarship with practical experience in curation, offering students the opportunity to hone their skills in interpreting, critiquing, and analyzing works of art and architecture.

Objectives:

• Develop a specialized understanding of art historical styles, subjects, and schools, including a connoisseurial ability to recognize forms, techniques, functionality, and authorship of works of art throughout history.
• Gain an understanding of the theory and practice of curating, including the social, political, and cultural functions of museums and galleries.
• Become conversant with the range of methodological and interdisciplinary approaches embraced by art history, including current research trends.
• Develop the skills necessary to produce a well-written, analytically rigorous, and original research-based thesis on an art historical subject.
• Enhance the ability to give concise, visually aware, and engaging oral presentations on specific works of art or art historical sites.
• Gain familiarity with and utilize a wide range of research resources, art collections, and sites in Dublin and other locations relevant to the course's field trips and individual research.
• Acquire a range of transferable skills, including analytical and imaginative thinking, which can be applied to various professional contexts.

Teaching:

• Delivered by academics and practitioners from across the university and the larger Dublin community.
• The program includes a supervised research thesis on a subject of the student's choice.
• A series of small-group taught courses offers advanced postgraduate academic training in the history of art, with a special focus on collections and curatorial practice.
• The course utilizes a stimulating mixture of thematically-linked lectures, seminars, and site visits, including an international study trip to a major European city.
• The program makes the best use of the rich art collections and research resources in Dublin and elsewhere.
• The School of Art History and Cultural Policy is committed to creating a supportive, collegial atmosphere where MA students can be directly inspired by the excellence and diversity of its research activity.

Careers:

• Numerous graduates from the School of Art History and Cultural Policy occupy leading positions in cultural institutions in Ireland and across the world.
• The graduate programs develop skills essential to a wide spectrum of careers involved with the arts, visual culture, and the media.
• UCD graduates have held directorial and curatorial positions at the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Chester Beatty Library, and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
• A UCD graduate is currently Head of Education at the Wallace Collection, London.

Other:

• The program is directed at postgraduate students of art history and cognate academic subjects such as history, archaeology, classics, and visual and material culture.
• It is also intended for those with experience in the art world and in the cultural heritage sector looking for an opportunity to hone their skills in the interpretation, critique, and analysis of works of art and design.
• Class time is divided between the modern classrooms of the Belfield campus and the Georgian stuccoed splendor of Newman House in the heart of Dublin.
• The School has its own designated reference libraries and study spaces, including the Françoise Henry Reading Room and the Rosemarie Mulcahy Seminar Room, which houses a specialist library devoted to Spanish art.

Full time EU-€9100/year Full Time non EU-€22600/year Part time EU-€4550/year Part time non EU-€11300/year