Department ofArt History

Historical + Interpretive Studies
A Humanities Major in the Arts
Students can major or minor in art history, pursue a minor in architectural history, or work toward earning a museum studies certificate. Students have the opportunity to hold internships or assistantships at Penn State’s Palmer Museum of Art, known particularly for its strong holdings in American, African American, and contemporary art.
Advanced studies with renowned scholars
Our M.A. and Ph.D. programs provide candidates with the opportunity to pursue advanced study directly with renowned scholars. The department’s faculty are internationally recognized scholars and critics known for their dedication to their students.
Research + Publications
Penn State Art History students, faculty, and staff are involved in a broad range of research initiatives. We invite you to explore.
Visit the Research + Publications page
Featured Research
Fabrication: Virtual and Material Approaches to Global Textiles
CVMS will focus attention to fibers and fabrics–materials with which most art historians are unfamiliar despite their substantial impact on the arts. The art historical significance of textiles cannot be overstated. Culturally significant ornament and imagery have been woven and sewn since antiquity. Textiles of linen and silk have provided the support for global painting practices for centuries. Patterning of the most delicate and sophisticated variety has appeared in lace and embroidery as much as in sculpture and architecture. Some of the most urgent economic and humanitarian issues of the modern era–the global transit of materials along trajectories of colonial power, the enslavement or exploitation of workers, the gendering and racialization of labor, the swelling of consumer culture–have been most impactful in the context of textile production. https://arts.psu.edu/research/virtual-material-studies/
Amara Solari Featured in Research | Penn State Fall 2022
Amara Solari and colleagues have scoured the Yucatán peninsula to document and preserve religious murals painted by Maya Christian artists more than 400 years ago, pairing art history with cutting-edge materials science to gain important new insights about these fragile artworks.
“Yucatán architecture and its associated artworks have remained like a time capsule of the 16th century.”
— Amara Solari
Degrees +
Certificates
News from A&A
Desai awarded Mellon fellowship to support South Asian architectural and history research
Madhuri Desai, associate professor of art history and Asian studies, has been awarded a Mid-Career Fellowship for the fall of 2023 by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British
College of Arts and Architecture announces spring 2023 student marshals
Two art education doctoral alumni recognized with NAEA research award
Faculty Spotlight
Amara Solari
Professor of Art History and Anthropology
Amara Solari teaches courses in Latin American art from the pre-Columbian through the colonial period. Her research focuses on processes of cultural, visual, and theological interchange between indigenous groups and Spanish settlers of New Spain. She recently received a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of her research project, “Maya Christian Murals of Yucatán: Indigenous Catholicism in Early Modern New Spain,” which focuses on fragile religious murals painted by Christianized Maya artists in Yucatán, Mexico, between 1550 and 1750.

Centers + Venues


Palmer Museum of Art

Borland Project Space

Center for Virtual/Material Studies
Alumni Spotlight

Alumni Spotlight
Cali Buckley
Ph.D. in Art History (+Dual Ph.D.) 2017Cali Buckley is the Content Manager of Education and Intellectual Property at CAA in New York City. At her multifaceted job she coordinate grants, awards, and juries; affiliated societies; the RAAMP program (Resources for Academic Art Museum Professionals); and will be putting together new programs for education and professional development. She participates in Museums and Humanities Advocacy Days asking Congress to consider funding the Institute of Museum and Library Studies (IMLS), the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and Fulbright-Hays program.


