The Art & Art History Department

The Art and Art History Department offers a major in art with a required concentration in either studio art, art history, or arts administration. The Meyerhoff Arts Center, located in the heart of the campus, houses the department’s offices; seminar and lecture rooms; and the studios for design, drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, and photography. Digital imaging studios are housed in the library in the Athenaeum.

Majors in studio art may concentrate in secondary education with certification in studio art. The department also offers a minor in art with courses chosen in art history, studio art, or a combination of both. The study of the visual arts at Goucher encourages students to develop creative talents and aesthetic sensitivity and to examine the historical emergence of art theory and practice. Goucher combines the professional faculty and up-to-date facilities of a larger school with the personal attention paid to each student’s artistic and scholarly development only possible at a smaller college.

The major in art prepares the student for graduate study or for a professional career in the visual arts. Courses in studio art emphasize independent thought and experimentation in transforming materials to communicate emotions and ideas. Courses in art history explore form, content, and meaning in art of the past and the present, with emphasis on historical and social contexts. To accommodate individual interests and career plans, students and their advisers may also design individualized majors that unite studies in art with course work in other fields.

The Art and Art History Department offers a variety of opportunities for personal and intellectual growth. Independent projects and research can be arranged under the direction of departmental faculty. The Goucher Fine and Performing Arts Scholarship is a four-year award granted to an accepted applicant on the basis of artistic and academic excellence. It is renewed yearly on the basis of academic excellence and ongoing citizenship in the arts. The Eleanor Spencer Award is granted to fund outstanding research projects requiring travel to complete, and can be awarded for a proposal in either art history or studio art. Rosenberg Scholarships are awarded to deserving students who have declared as art majors. Candidates are judged on the quality of their current work, citizenship in the department, and academic excellence. Internships can be designed for college credit through established relationships with area museums, arts organizations, artists, galleries, and design studios. These provide students with hands-on experience and help them establish professional contacts. Certain courses are open to Goucher students at a consortium of institutions including the Johns Hopkins University, Maryland Institute College of Art, and Towson University. Exhibitions mounted in the college’s Silber Gallery are part of the department’s academic program, and artists exhibiting there are invited to speak to our student in critiques, gallery talks, and slide lectures. Majors are encouraged to exhibit in the Corrin student gallery. In addition to Goucher’s art collection of original art objects, books, photographs, and slides, students have easy access to the many libraries, museums, and art galleries in Baltimore,Washington, DC, and Philadelphia. The department sponsors field trips to these and other cities along the East Coast and hosts a diverse roster of noted visiting artists, art historians, and art critics.