About Our Department
On Friday, May 16, a severe storm impacted lives across St. Louis. More than 5,000 homes in the region were affected, along with parts of our campus. If you would like to contribute to the storm recovery effort, please visit WashU's site for storm recovery resources.
The Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis offers a diverse program of study in art history, archaeology, and visual studies at the undergraduate and graduate level. We are home to some 60 majors and minors, and to over 20 graduate students working on MA and PhD degrees. We enjoy strong partnerships with other Humanities programs on campus, and with local arts institutions. Housed within the distinguished School of Arts & Sciences, the Department is an active collaborator with schools across the Danforth campus, as well as with the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, and the Saint Louis Art Museum.
The Department of Art History and Archaeology respectfully acknowledges that we are on the traditional, ancestral lands of the Osage Nation. The process of knowing and acknowledging the land we stand on is a way of honoring and expressing gratitude for the ancestral Osage people who were on this land before us. For more information about the Osage Nation, click here.
The Department is also broadly committed to racial justice, and pledges to use our classrooms and curricula as tools to advance these efforts. To read the statement written and approved by our faculty, click here.
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Announcing the inaugural Mark S. Weil and Joan M. Hall Grants
In 2021, the late Mark S. Weil and his wife Joan M. Hall made a generous gift to the Department of Art History and Archaeology to establish an endowment that could support faculty research and collaborative scholarship and teaching across fields, departments and institutions. The inaugural competition for grants awarded by this fund was held in summer 2022 and the results of these awards are now being realized by four grant recipients.
Nancy Rubin ‘Above and Beyond’ Award
Caitlin Petty Receives Nancy Rubin 'Above and Beyond' Award
The Department is thrilled to announce that Caitlin Petty is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Nancy Rubin ‘Above and Beyond’ award. This award for graduate students was established in honor of Nancy Rubin, the Department’s longtime administrative assistant who passed away suddenly in 2020, and honors Nancy’s exceptional character, values, and ethos of generosity and compassion. Caitlin, a PhD candidate, was nominated by her peers for her exceptional contributions to their community. Please join us to congratulate Caitlin in receiving this special honor!
In the words of one nominator:
Over the three years that I’ve had the good fortune of being in the program with Caitlin, I have never known her to be anything less than abundantly warm, joyful and truly kind; she is always willing to help and answer questions, encourages engagement in all manner of contexts and across disciplinary groups, and exemplifies calm and empathetic leadership when the situation demands it.
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Our Alumni
We actively encourage multiple outcomes for our students of art history and archaeology, and alumni follow diverse career paths both in the United States and abroad. Our majors and minors pursue graduate and professional degrees in a variety of disciplines, ranging from art history, visual culture, and archaeology to advanced work in all aspects of the humanities. Many go on to curatorial and museum education work, collections management, the business of the art market, arts criticism, and diverse positions in arts management. Still others pursue advanced professional degrees in law, medicine, business, social work, and international affairs. Our doctoral program is the oldest in the midwest, and our network of alumni stretches internationally to Europe and Asia.
