Art and History of Art

Art and history of art is a four-year programme that combines studio practice with academic scholarship, asking you to be both a maker and a thinker. Studying art as a practice develops your visual intelligence, your technical craft, and your ability to communicate ideas through images, objects, and materials. History of art provides the intellectual framework within which that practice is situated, examining how and why art has been made across different cultures, periods, and social contexts, and what art can reveal about the societies that produce it and the values they hold.

This four-year, full-time programme at Reading develops your skills in both dimensions simultaneously, ensuring that your studio practice is informed by critical and historical awareness and that your academic study is grounded in the experience of making. You will work across different media and approaches in the studio while studying the history of Western and global art, developing the visual analysis skills, research methods, and critical vocabulary that art historians use. The combination allows you to develop a more sophisticated practice by understanding where your work sits within wider artistic traditions, and a more insightful scholarship by having direct experience of the creative process.

Graduates of art and history of art programmes move into a wide range of careers in the visual arts and cultural sector. Gallery and museum work, curation, arts administration, education, art criticism and writing, auction houses, commercial galleries, and the creative industries are all common destinations. The studio skills also support careers in illustration, visual communication, and design.

Many graduates continue to postgraduate study in fine art, art history, curating, or arts management, and the combination of practical and scholarly training provides a strong foundation for either professional or academic development in the arts.