Here you can carry out art historical and design research; apply the theories and practice of information science; design and curate digital libraries, archives, and exhibitions; and communicate arts content and design effectively across diverse cultures and societies.
Pratt students at the Morgan Library Reading Room (courtesy Polly Cancro, History of Art and Design / Library and Information Science '18)
History of Art and Design / Library and Information Science at Pratt
The MSLIS/MA History of Art and Design dual-degree program prepares you for careers in art and design, museum, and academic libraries. In this program, you will become an expert on the intersection of art and design and information, going deep into art, design, and historical archives, art and design collections, and more. With fellowship opportunities at NYC’s leading museums, libraries, and archives, such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Frick Art Reference Library, and MoMA, the dual-degree program offers unique experiential learning opportunities.
Student Work
You may also browse completed M.A. History of Art & Design Theses at the Pratt Institute Libraries.
The Experience
Students in the dual-degree MSLIS/MA History of Art and Design program get to experience all Pratt has to offer by taking half of their program (30 credits) at the School of Information based in Manhattan, and the other half in the Department of History of Art and Design on the Brooklyn campus (30 credits). The first two years students take courses in both departments, with much of the thesis work taking place in the third year. With class sizes of just 8-12, you’ll collaborate closely with your cohort and faculty and be learning at the nexus of NYC arts and culture communities.
Internships
Internships at museums, libraries, nonprofit art organizations, and galleries provide professional opportunities in your area of interest and prepare you for future careers. Recent students have interned at prestigious institutions such as the New York Public Library, Franklin Furnace, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Study Abroad
We are pleased to offer study abroad options for dual-degree students, including a new course offered for the first time during spring break 2024: “Artist Archives: Rome/New York”. We also recently celebrated the 35th anniversary of Pratt in Venice, which is a 6-week program that occurs each June and July. For more information on Study Abroad, see where you can go.
Learning Resources
We develop disciplinary fluency in our program of study and we celebrate the interdisciplinary nature of design critical to address the plurality and complexity of the environments in which we operate. Learning resources.
Our Faculty
Pratt’s distinguished faculty of outstanding creative professionals and scholars share a common desire to develop each student’s potential and creativity to the fullest. 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 and School of Information faculty and administrators.
Our Alumni
Pratt’s distinguished alumni are leading diverse and thriving careers, addressing critical challenges and creating innovative work that reimagines our world.
Where They Work
- Librarian, Photographs and Prints Division, New York Public Library
- Archivist, Center for Brooklyn History at Brooklyn Public Library
- IT Project Manager, J. Paul Getty Trust
- Head, Reference & Reader Services, Teachers College, Columbia University
- Web Collection Librarian, Columbia University Libraries
- Dean and Director of Libraries, Bard College
Success Stories
How Can Virtual Spaces Make Art More Accessible?
Prattfolio Story
Ready for More?
| HERE’S HOW TO APPLY | Graduate Studies at Pratt | OUR CAMPUS & BEYOND |
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| Join us at Pratt. Learn more about admissions requirements, plan your visit, talk to a counselor, and start your application. Take the next step. | Whether your goal is to advance your career, pivot to a new field, or explore your craft or groundbreaking research, our 33 graduate programs provide the rigor and support to achieve your vision. Explore our graduate programs in architecture, fine arts, design, information studies, and the liberal arts and sciences. Learn More. | 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. |
Social media
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.
1 day ago
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
3 days ago
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.
2 weeks ago
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.
3 weeks ago
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
4 weeks ago
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
1 month ago
Sometimes we are so busy in New York that we forget to slow down, look around and notice beautiful things. The MTA recently installed these gorgeous mosaics right below us as you descend the stairs to the 1/2/3 subway platform at 14th St. Thank you @mta!
1 day ago
You are invited to a talk followed by wine and hors d'oeuvres reception in the PMC art gallery. RSVP via the link in our bio.
W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits with Dr. Whitney Battle-Baptiste
Thursday, Dec. 4 from 5-7pm
Pratt Manhattan Center room 201
About the talk: Famed sociologist, writer, and Black rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois fundamentally changed the representation of Black Americans with his exhibition of data visualizations at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Beautiful in design and powerful in content, these data portraits make visible a wide spectrum of African American culture, from advances in education to the lingering effects of slavery. They convey a literal and figurative representation of what he famously referred to as "the color line.”
We are pleased to welcome to Pratt Dr. Whitney Battle-Baptiste, the editor of W. E. B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America (Princeton UP, 2018). This book assembles Du Bois’ data visualizations, and in this talk Dr. Battle-Baptiste will take the audience through some of them and provide background and context.
After the talk, a reception will be held in the Pratt Manhattan Gallery where In Our Time: Eleven Artists + W.E.B. Du Bois curated by Loretta Yarlow is on display. Leading artists reflect on the legacy of one of the most profound and influential African American intellectuals of the 20th century and on the impact that Du Bois has had on their work. Artists on display include Radcliffe Bailey, Theaster Gates, Mickalene Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others. Artists in the show have been inspired by Du Bois’ data portraits among other aspects of his work.
1 day ago
School of Information student Shreesa Shrestha (MSIXD ’26) is making the most of every opportunity at Pratt as she balances client projects, community-building initiatives, and a prestigious Product Design Fellowship at The Museum of Modern Art. Read all about her work via the link in our bio.
2 days ago
It's the School of Information November '25 Newsletter with events including our Holiday Party and our first ever Global Harvest Potluck, and much more. Link available in our bio.
5 days ago
Students in INFO 634 Conservation Lab with Prof. Slava Polishchuk work on creating custom enclosures for rare books this semester.
1 week ago
We are getting ready for our first ever Pratt iSchool Global Harvest Potluck on Wednesday, November 19 4:30-6:30pm on the 6th Floor of PMC. Want to bring something to the potluck? Please sign-up via Google Sheet we sent out over the iSchool Google Groups.
Thank you to Admin & Operation Manager Nene Villalobos for picking up what will become our Yoko Ono-inspired Wish Tree from the the Lowes in Gowanus!
1 week ago
