Develop your artistic practice while gaining a strong foundation in the liberal arts. Discover different perspectives on art, learning artistic techniques while studying art and design from around the world and throughout history.
Practice traditional and innovative visual arts techniques in studio classes taught by our outstanding faculty of active professional artists. You will have access to Pratt’s world-class facilities, including generously sized art and design studios and labs with cutting-edge hardware and software. In addition, the program’s emphasis on writing means our graduates can draft grant proposals, artist statements, and other writing critical to a career in the arts.
Study Art and Design History at an Art School
You will become part of a close-knit, supportive community of artists, designers, and thinkers at Pratt. As part of Pratt’s extensive network, you will have the opportunity to learn from leading artists, designers, historians, and theorists.
A Strong Foundation in the Liberal Arts
You will gain a wide perspective in theory, design methods, and artistic expression, spanning media such as art, design, architecture, film, and literature. Understand how the effects of gender, class, politics, and religion intersect with art and culture. Pratt’s liberal arts curriculum, including foreign language study, prepares you to research and critically analyze art and literature.
Immersed in Nature—in the Heart of New York City
Our beautiful, tree-lined campus is a green oasis in Brooklyn, located minutes from world-class museums, galleries, and theaters. Students walk through our rotating sculpture park, landmarked buildings, and lush lawns on the way to class.
A Versatile, Interdisciplinary Degree
Interdisciplinary and socially engaged, our program provides a broad foundation from which students build critical and analytical capacities. Drawing on disciplines ranging from sociology, anthropology, linguistics, and economics, you’ll go beyond aesthetics to consider complex questions and challenges. Our students learn to write and research effectively—invaluable skills in an evolving world.
With class sizes of just 12–20, you’ll collaborate closely with your team, faculty, and community partners to learn the skills needed to create strategies and systems that meet real-world challenges.
Customize Your Degree with Electives and Seminars
Take electives in film and design, architecture, non-Western, pre-Renaissance, Renaissance to Rococo, and 19th-, 20th-, or 21st-century art, design, theory and methodology, and chemistry of art. Major-specific seminars are available from your first through senior year on topics that include the role of New York as a cultural capital, critical and theoretical models, and art and social justice.
Internships in the NYC Art World
Pratt has longstanding connections within New York City’s art community. Our dedicated internship coordinator helps students find excellent programs at leading arts institutions in the city, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and galleries across the city.
Study Abroad in London, Paris, or Venice
Pratt has deep connections with university partners around the world. We offer summer intensives in Pratt in London and Paris programs. We also recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of Pratt in Venice, a six-week program held each June and July. For more information on Study Abroad, visit Pratt’s Study Abroad page.
The BFA program affords a grounding in the philosophy, literature, and criticism of the history of art and design. Students will take specially designed foundation courses and the survey classes. They will continue with additional credits in liberal arts (English, humanities, sciences, social sciences, and foreign language), studio, and electives. Majors will take upper-level electives in film and design, architecture, non-Western, pre-Renaissance, Renaissance to Rococo, and 19th-, 20th-, or 21st-century art. Theory and Methodology, Chemistry of Art, and a Senior Seminar are requirements for completion of the degree.
Undergraduates are competent in a broad range of knowledge in the history of cultures and their art.
Undergraduates understand that the meaning of works of art is tied to changes in social, political, and economic contexts through time.
Undergraduates will be able to demonstrate the necessary writing skills to analytically observe and describe works of art and the research skills to place art in its social context.
Undergraduates in the B.F.A. degree with studio training and experience learn traditional and innovative techniques in the manipulation of materials that generate artistic expression.
Our Faculty
Our faculty of outstanding creative professionals and scholars share a common desire to develop each student’s potential. Bringing different views, methods, and perspectives, they provide a rigorous educational model in which students make and learn. See all History of Art and Design faculty and administrators.
Career Paths After Graduation: Work and Advanced Study
Our program is your launchpad for success in competitive fields. Graduates pursue thriving careers at leading organizations such as the Christie’s Design Department, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and World Monuments Fund.
They are also uniquely prepared for advanced research and study, earning placements in prestigious graduate programs such as Harvard University, the University of Southern California, the University of Edinburgh, Oxford University, and the Victoria and Albert/Royal College of Art master’s programs.
Career Support for Life
Students and alumni can schedule one-on-one appointments with career strategists in Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development. A career strategist can work with you to develop your job/internship search strategies and life and business plans, as well as review résumés, cover letters, websites, and other marketing materials.
You are invited to "Otl Aicher’s Designs for Development," by Eric Anderson.
Date: Thursday, November 20th
Time: 5:45pm
Venue: Alumni Reading Room
About the Project: As a founder of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm and creator of graphic identities for Lufthansa and the Munich Olympics, Otl Aicher has been celebrated for his role in establishing modern design as a pillar of post-Nazi West German culture. This talk examines a different and little-known facet of Aicher’s career, his contribution to the globally emergent field of design for development. Traveling to India in 1960, Aicher made design proposals to support economic and social programs in the newly independent nation. Examining Aicher’s unpublished travel reports, held today in the HfG Archives, the talk considers the designer’s work in India in relation to the Ulm School’s influential systems-design method, Third World politics, and postcolonial debates on development.
About the Speaker: Eric Anderson is Professor and Chair of the Theory and History of Art and Design department at Rhode Island School of Design. A historian of modern design, his research interests include interiors and domesticity, exhibitions and media, the cultural history of Vienna and psychoanalysis, and the global history of modernism. He recently completed a manuscript titled The Chromatic Unconscious, on Sigmund Freud and Viennese design before 1900, and is currently beginning a new project, Ulm in the World, on the West German school’s transnational networks, development pedagogy, and geopolitical engagements in the 1960s.
You are invited to an HAD Faculty Conversations by Philip Ording, “Anni Albers’s Trigonometry”
* This event is for the Pratt community.
Date: Thursday, November 20th
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Venue: Main 210
About the Project: Anni Albers (1899-1994) is perhaps most widely known as a textile artist but she was also an accomplished printmaker. This talk will present ongoing research into the geometric character of Albers’s graphic work, with a focus on trigonal designs. These works—etchings, screen prints, and photo-offsets—display intricacies that approach symmetry while skirting it. Our aim is to explore this effect in different contexts that hopefully shed light on how it is achieved. This is joint work with Brenda Danilowitz.
About the Speaker: Philip Ording is a mathematician and writer whose work explores the intersections of mathematics, art, and language. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Math & Science and a Center K-12 Instructor.
You are invited to “Art as Social Cartography: Tracing Communities in Malaysia’s Everyday Landscapes,” by Kenneth Wong See Huat.
* This event is open to the general public.
Date: Monday, November 24, 2025
Time: 5:30 pm
Venue: Alumni Reading Room
About the Project: This lecture introduces socially engaged art practices in Malaysia, where art intersects with heritage, memory, and community. Drawing on projects such as Bangsar Heritage Walks, Siamese Reversed food-art performance, and the proposed Jenjarom New Village digital cultural mapping initiative, Kenneth Wong See Huat reflects on how artists and curators reimagine local narratives through collaboration and place-based storytelling. The talk also revisits a series of guerrilla exhibitions in alternative and public spaces across Greater Kuala Lumpur, offering insights into the evolving ecosystem of socially grounded art and the role of curators in shaping inclusive cultural dialogue.
About the Speaker: Kenneth Wong See Huat is a curator and heritage consultant from Malaysia whose work explores cultural memory, community engagement, and contemporary art in Southeast Asia. Currently an Asian Cultural Council Fellow based in New York, he has developed participatory and site-specific projects such as Bangsar Heritage Walks, the Siamese Reversed food-art performance, and the Jenjarom New Village digital cultural mapping initiative. His practice spans guerrilla exhibitions in alternative and public spaces across Greater Kuala Lumpur, connecting art, heritage, and everyday life. Kenneth serves on the board of ICOMOS Malaysia (2024-2027) and has written widely on art, culture, and urban transformation.
#art #ArtHistory #pratthad
Congratulations to HAD Alumni Dylan Kaleikaumaka Hill, MA History of Art and Design ’23, and Olli Toppeta, MS Library and Information Science; MA History of Art and Design ’22, on the curation of Exquisite Relations at The Rubelle and Norman Schafler Gallery. The multidisciplinary exhibition, presented by the School of Art in collaboration with Pratt’s Department of Exhibitions, comprised painting, sculpture, photography, film, and performance by Pratt students and alumni. This is the fourth annual School of Art student and alumni exhibition to pose questions about the formation of cultural identity, with this year’s iteration presenting work that exists within and explores the queer experience.
Visit the Pratt News to read the full story.
You are invited to an HAD Faculty Conversations by Eana Kim, “Art in the Age of Machine Intelligence: From Cybernetics to Generative AI”
* This event is for Pratt community.
Date: Thursday, November 6th
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Venue: Main 212
About the Project: How do machines see? Artists have long imagined machine vision through codes, algorithms, and feedback systems. This talk traces the evolution of art’s engagement with machine intelligence, from the cybernetic experiments of the 1960s to today’s data-driven installations. Beginning with Harold Cohen’s pioneering program AARON and Vera Molnár’s algorithmic drawings, the lecture follows artists who reimagined creativity through computation. It then considers contemporary practices by Trevor Paglen, Hito Steyerl, Pierre Huyghe, Anicka Yi, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Sasha Stiles, and Refik Anadol. Engaging recent exhibitions such as Jeu de Paume’s The World Through AI, the talk reconsiders art as an interface between human, machine, and environment.
About the Speaker: Eana Kim is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. She specializes in the intersections of contemporary art, technology, and science, and has published widely as a critic and scholar, with recent writing in Artforum, Flash Art, The Brooklyn Rail, and ARTnews, among others. Before joining Pratt, she held curatorial positions at the Museum of Modern Art and NYU’s Grey Art Museum, contributing to major exhibitions including Jack Whitten: The Messenger and Signals: How Video Transformed the World. She is currently developing a book project on nonhuman intelligence in living-organism-based art.
The series of Art History 101 posts initiate with the concept of Art Movements with explanation of @edengallery and the chronological list provided by art historian Christopher P Jones.
Don’t forget to check the upcoming posts to learn more about each one of the movements in detail!
#arthistory #arthistory101 #art #artmovements #pratt #pratthad #prattinstitute
You are invited to “Heirlooms and Heiresses: How women who inherited Caribbean Slavery wealth funded British art, architecture and interiors,” by Dr. Miranda Kaufmann.
Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Time: 5:30 pm
Venue: ARC E-02
If you are interested in attending, please RSVP using the link in the bio.
* This event is open to general public.
About the Project: A century or two before New York’s wealthiest families sent their daughters to marry into the British aristocracy, heiresses to equally irresistible fortunes founded on Caribbean slavery bought their way into British society. But their global stories touch unexpected people and places, from Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and America’s Founding Fathers, to India and Australia; Charleston, East Florida and New York’s Chelsea. Join Miranda to hear their stories, learn how the story of African enslavement in the Americas was not limited to the United States, and how these heiresses’ heirlooms – their portraits, fine art and furniture – are now scattered across collections globally, including the Met, the Frick, the Getty, even Windsor Castle.
About the Speaker: Dr. Miranda Kaufmann is the author of the Wolfson History Prize-shortlisted book Black Tudors: The Untold Story (2017). She read History at Christ Church, Oxford and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London. She has worked with English Heritage and the National Trust, taken her work into schools with her Teaching Black Tudors project and to the world with her free Black Tudors: The Untold Story FutureLearn course. Her second book, Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Slavery in the Caribbean (2025), tells the stories of nine British female enslavers and the people they enslaved. www.mirandakaufmann.com
#historyofart #arthistory #ArtAndDesign #pratt #historyofdesign
You are invited to “Becoming Leonor Fini – Theatrical Self-Performances between Art and Life,” by Andrea Kollnitz.
* This event is for Pratt community only.
Date: Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Time: 5:30 pm
Venue: ARC E-02
About the Project: Using theories of performativity, this talk explores Leonor Fini’s (1907-1996) self-fashioning and dressing-up practices, highlighting how her extension of artistic creative practices, from painted artworks to her self-creation through costumes, masks and fashion, allowed her to become a living artwork. Fini’s personal theatricality, photographic self-portraits and self-transformative, genderbending, transgressive dressing-up games in relation to surrealist practices, reveal the hybrid identities that made up Fini’s character. Here, the artist’s self-fashioning must be understood as a substantial creative practice developing and confirming artistic and personal autonomy and pointing to an extended concept of art where creation and self-creation powerfully enable each other.
About the Speaker: Andrea Kollnitz is Professor in Art History and Head of the Art History Department at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics at Stockholm University. Her research focuses on the self-fashioning of avant-garde artists; art and nationalism; the Nordic avant-garde from transnational perspectives. Kollnitz is co-editor of the books "Fashion and Modernism" (Bloomsbury 2018), "A Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the Nordic Countries, vol 2: 1925-1950" (Brill, 2019), "Fashion, Performance & Performativity" (Bloomsbury, 2021), and "Fashion Aesthetics and Ethics" (Bloomsbury, 2023). She is currently leading a research project on Surrealism in Sweden and recently published "Becoming Leonor Fini: Theatrical Self-Performances between Art and Life" (Bloomsbury, 2025).
#historyofart #pratt #arthistory #artanddesign
Professor Eana Kim and her Art Since the Sixties class visited MoMA for a hands-on session of object-based research and discussion. Students explored Pop Art and Fluxus in the galleries, bringing their classroom debates to life among iconic works by George Maciunas, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and more!
Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step.
You’ll find yourself at home at Pratt. Learn more about our residence halls, student organizations, athletics, gallery exhibitions, events, the amazing City of New York and our Brooklyn neighborhood communities. Check us out.
