Art History

Art history is the discipline that asks how and why paintings, sculptures, buildings, photographs, prints, films, and works of design come to look the way they do, and what they mean within the societies and historical moments that produced them. It is a discipline that demands close visual attention alongside rigorous historical and theoretical inquiry, training you to see with greater precision and to articulate what you see with increasing sophistication. Art history is not a passive catalogue of masterpieces; it is an active, contested field of scholarship that engages with questions of power, identity, gender, colonialism, and the economics of cultural production.

At Birkbeck College, this part-time programme makes serious study of art history accessible to students who are studying alongside work and other commitments, offering the evening and weekend teaching that Birkbeck is known for. It is taught by world-leading scholars and takes full advantage of London's extraordinary resources, including its national museums, galleries, and monuments, as sites of direct learning and encounter. You will develop skills in visual analysis, historical and archival research, art theory, and critical writing, and you will engage with a wide range of periods, geographies, and media.

Graduates of art history programmes go on to work in galleries and museums, auction houses, art dealing, heritage organisations, cultural policy, arts administration, publishing, journalism, broadcasting, education, and the creative economy more broadly. The analytical and communication skills developed in this degree are also valued outside the arts sector, in any professional role that requires sustained attention to meaning and context. Postgraduate study in art history, museum studies, curatorial practice, or cultural heritage is a common further step for those seeking specialist expertise or academic careers.