Founded in 1969, the MA in Art History at UMass Amherst is the only graduate degree program in the field at a public university in New England.
Here at UMass Amherst, you'll be part of a program enrolling an average of 15-20 students, ensuring close collaboration between students and our nine full-time faculty members. This dynamic and comprehensive program develops expertise across a broad range of geographic areas and time periods including ancient Greek and Roman art, Medieval art, East Asian art, Early Modern, 19th century European and Orientalist art, Black diaspora, American and Latinx art, Modern Architecture, and Modern and Contemporary art. It is one of only a handful of M.A. programs that require that students pass a Comprehensive Image Exam in all of these fields, while also allowing the opportunity to develop expertise in a two major and minor areas chosen by the student through in-depth research papers and an Essay Exam.
Our faculty’s active research is reflected in a range of great courses highlighting art history's diversity of methodological approaches, geographic areas, and thematic issues.
Through your work, you'll be well-prepared for doctoral study, and you'll get professional training for many careers — museum and historical society work, government programs in the arts, the art market, journalism, teaching at all levels, and so much more.
Our recent graduates have been accepted into doctoral programs at Princeton, University of California, Berkeley, Columbia, The Courtauld Institute of Art, John Hopkins, the Graduate Center at CUNY, and Boston University, among others. Graduates also have continued to full-time careers in the museum world and art market at places like the Clark Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Bonhams, and Skinner Auctioneers—the list goes on.
The program financially supports graduate students through teaching assistantships and fellowship awards. Teaching positions provide students with comprehensive financial support including a stipend, 95 percentage of health insurance costs, and full tuition credit. The Graduate Diversity Fellowship was created to support one student per graduate cohort from a community historically underrepresented in art history, in the form of a full GAship plus $5000 summer funding in addition to the standard Professional Development funding offered to every graduate student (normally $4000 per student after their first year in the program). For students who do not receive teaching assistantships, department fellowships may be awarded to help with the cost of tuition.
"My two years at UMass prepared me for my doctoral studies at Princeton in ways that I still am recognizing and appreciating now as I sink into year four of my Ph.D. Beyond the rigor and breadth of my coursework at UMass and how I learned to balance teaching and studying, two of the most crucial aspects of preparation were the images & essay exams and the support that I received from the History of Art & Architecture faculty in preparing my Ph.D. applications. The care and attention (and accountability) that the faculty demonstrated in meeting with me, editing my statement of purpose, and helping me with deadlines were completely essential to my success getting into multiple Ph.D. programs, and are reflective of the meaningful and very rare depth of engagement with graduate students that the faculty and program at UMass offer."
– John White, UMass MA '21
