Graduate Fine Arts

Centrally located in Brooklyn’s thriving art community Pratt’s MFA program in Fine Arts immerses students in the culture of contemporary art, supported by a faculty of  working artists and peers. The graduate curriculum is both rigorous and flexible, allowing wide latitude for interdisciplinary exploration while fostering critical perspectives and a deeper understanding of the histories, issues and cultural contexts that inform artmaking today.

Pratt’s MFA degree is in Fine Arts rather than in a specific discipline. Students build their program of study in consultation with a faculty mentor and departmental advisors. Graduate instruction is offered in a wide range of media, including painting/drawing, printmaking, photography, video, sculpture, and integrated practices & new forms (i.e. installation, public art, performance). Beyond departmental courses, MFA students may choose graduate-level electives in any department in Pratt Institute and concurrent dual degree programs (MS/MFA) are offered in the History of Art and in Art and Design Education. 

Students work in individual studios and have access to shared shops and labs, including a fully-equipped wood shop, metal shop, print shop, ceramics studios, darkrooms, digital labs with high-resolution scanners and printers, as well as dedicated campus galleries. There are many opportunities to show work in a variety of traditional and non-traditional spaces on campus. Each semester, students open their studios to the public and second-year students mount individual Thesis shows that are also open to the public. In addition to a regular schedule of studio visits by faculty members, the department’s Visiting Artist Lecture Series (VALS) brings internationally renowned artists and critics to give public lectures and have individual studio visits with graduate students. In addition, the Pratt Artists League (PAL), the graduate student club, has a budget to bring in visiting artists and critics for studio visits and fund other student-generated programming and exhibitions. An interdisciplinary 5-week summer course in Rome, “City as Studio,” offers students the opportunity to research and create work in an international context.

Pratt’s faculty members in Fine Arts are distinguished by their achievements, exhibiting internationally, as well as receiving major awards from the Guggenheim Foundation National Endowment for the Arts, Tiffany Foundation, Joan Mitchell Foundation, Skowhegan, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Creative Capital, and Art Matters. Pratt’s graduate students in Fine Art come from around the world and are selected for their promise and readiness for the intensive, self-directed experience of graduate study.

Deborah Bright
Chair, Fine Arts Department

Contact Us

Dina Weiss, Acting Assistant Chair
dweiss13@pratt.edu
South Hall 1
718.636.3581

Nat Meade, Assistant to the Chair
nmeade@pratt.edu
South Hall 1
718.636.3634
 

More information about the:

STUDY ABROAD, GRADUATE FINE ARTS PROGRAM IN ROME  

The Graduate Fine Arts Program for MFA student's, is an opportunity to study in Rome for a five week program offering an inter-disciplinary curriculum that utilizes the platform of the "City as Studio."  The courses are inter-related fostering collaboration, critical thinking, and a studio practice that is contextually responsive.  The intention is to challenge the artist to leave the familiar and at times predictive confines of the studio and to work directly within the open environment of the city of Rome - to engage simultaneously with the Historical and the Contemporary, to question through the active encounter of a different culture one's place within the global art community, and within this context to initiate an account of one's own professional ambitions. This program is open to non-Pratt graduate level students.