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.
Art Nouveau (1890–1910)
A movement that broke away from historical revival
styles and embraced a new, nature-driven modernity.
Emerging across Europe at the turn of the century, it
sought to unite art, architecture, and everyday life.
Key characteristics: organic lines, whiplash curves,
botanical motifs, and a deep commitment to
craftsmanship across architecture, furniture, and
graphic design.
Example: the iconic Paris Métro Entrance, where iron
and glass twist into vine-like forms, turning a public
transit entry into sculptural urban art.
A reminder that design can be functional, expressive,
and poetic all at once.
#pratthad #arthistory101 #ArtAndDesign #pratt #art
#design
The evolution of Western art is a story of creativity, innovation, and cultural transformation. From the idealized forms of ancient Greece and Rome to the spiritual intricacies of the Middle Ages, and finally to the humanistic revival of the Renaissance, each era brought new ways of seeing and depicting the world. Join us as we explore key moments and masterpieces that shaped art history, highlighting timeless works and groundbreaking techniques that continue to inspire today.
A journey through the foundations of Western art:
Classical Era: Idealized beauty & mythological themes.
Example: "Laocoön and His Sons" (c. 40-30 BCE)
Middle Ages: Art turned spiritual with intricate designs.
Example: The Book of Kells (c. 800 CE)
Renaissance: A rebirth of humanism, realism, and perspective.
Example: "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli (c. 1485)
Innovations: Leonardo da Vinci redefined art with works like Mona Lisa (1503-1506) and The Last Supper (1495-1498).
#art #historyofdesign #arthistory101 #ArtAndDesign #arthistory #ArtHistory #pratthad #pratt
“When bicycle handlebars inspired a revolution in furniture.”
The 1925 Wassily Chair, designed at the Bauhaus, shows how industrial materials transformed modern living. A milestone in tubular steel design that remains timeless almost a century later.
#ArtHistory #historyofdesign #ArtAndDesign #arthistory #art #arthistory101
This month's art term: Vorticism
Definition:
A short-lived British avant-garde movement, formed in London in 1914, with the aim of creating art that expressed the dynamism of the modern world. Visually, it may be thought of as the British equivalent to Italian Futurism. Vorticist art features Cubist fragmentation combined with hard-edged imagery inspired by machines and the urban environment.
#historyofart #historyofdesign #pratt #ArtAndDesign #ArtHistory #pratthad #art #arthistory101 #arthistory
Professor Eana Kim and students from “Art Since the Sixties”visited the New Museum during its reopening week to experience the newly renovated building and the exhibition “New Humans: Memories of the Future.” The visit extended classroom discussions on curatorial practice, art and technology, and posthumanist discourse, with a focus on how contemporary exhibitions frame evolving definitions of the human.
You are invited to "Art Within Reach," by Ezra Shales.
* This event is for Pratt community only.
Date: Monday, March 30th
Time: 6:00–8:00 pm
Venue: Alumni Reading Room
About the Project: Pitchers of American Life: Art Within Reach (Bloomsbury 2026) discusses vessels preserved from ancient indigenous American cultures, those caught in the spiderwebs of antique shops, and common tools used for drinks lurking in modern kitchens. Might a history of art extracted from the cupboard liberate us from usual cultural hierarchies of the Grand Tour—and make the idea of art more accessible and relevant? A vision of design/craft/art intersecting at our fingertips provides a deliberately provocative strategy to move beyond inherited limitations and prejudices.
The presentation will include 'show-and-touch' engagement with a selection from mass-produced goods. How does a design once on display at the London Crystal Palace in 1851 compare to one from our Plasticene era?
About the Speaker: Professor in the History of Art department at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Ezra Shales, Ph.D., is the author of The Shape of Craft (Reaktion, 2017) and Made in Newark: Cultivating Industrial Arts and Civic Identity in the Progressive Era (Rutgers University Press, 2010). He has contributed to exhibition catalogs for artists Polly Apfelbaum, Neil Brownsword, Kim Dickey, Shari Mendelson, and Dan Walsh and published in the Journal of Modern Craft and Journal of Design History.
You are invited to "Robin Tewes: Painting, Activism, and the Politics of Visibility,"by Robin Tewes.
* This event is for Pratt community only.
Date: Wednesday, April 1st
Time: 5:00–7:00 pm
Venue: Alumni Reading Room
About the Project: In this lecture, Robin Tewes reflects on the intersection of her painting practice and her engagement with feminist institutional critique. Moving between the studio and collective action, she will discuss how figurative painting can register lived experience, labor, and structures of power, while also participating in broader conversations about visibility and equity in the art world. Drawing on her involvement with the Guerrilla Girls and her long history in artist-run spaces, Tewes considers how sustained studio practice and activism inform one another across decades of work.
About the Speaker: Robin Tewes is a New York–based painter and educator whose work has been widely exhibited nationally and internationally, including at MoMA, P.S.1, the Whitney Museum, the Drawing Center, and is in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. A founding member of P.S.122 Painting Space in 1975, she has been active in artist-run initiatives throughout her career. Tewes was also a member of the Guerrilla Girls, the feminist collective known for exposing gender and racial inequities in the art world. Her work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, and numerous other publications.
You are invited to "The Fragile, the Flammable, and the Forbidden: Books in the Art of Xie Xiaoze," by Xiaoze Xie.
Date: Thursday, March 5th
Time: 5:30–7:00 pm
Venue: Main 212
If you are interested in attending, please RSVP.
* This event is for Pratt community only.
About the Project: Renowned artist Xiaoze Xie will discuss his exploration of the theme of the library spanning three decades, along with his ambitious project engaging the history of banned books in China. He will share his concepts, research, and creative processes through photographs, videos, and captivating images of paintings, sculptures and installations.
About the Speaker: Xiaoze Xie is an internationally recognized artist and the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University. Xie has exhibited extensively in the U.S. and internationally. His recent solo exhibitions include "Amber of History: Reimagining the Library Cave at Dunhuang" at the Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing (2025), “Objects of Evidence” at the Asia Society Museum in New York City (2019-20) and “Eyes On” at the Denver Art Museum (2017-18). His work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Denver Art Museum, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Oakland Museum of California, San Francisco Asian Art Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, among others.
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