Art and Art History

The fusion of creativity and critical thinking learned through studying the visual arts is essential to students’ lives: our most successful graduates -- whether engineers, business leaders, physicians, lawyers, scholars or artists -- think imaginatively and bring vision to their work.

www.bucknell.edu/ArtAndArtHistory

Related Student Organizations and University Programs

Arts Residential College

Art Collective

Be Fashion Magazine

Film Club

Photography Club

Student Art Association

Career Paths

Art and art history students pursue careers as artists, architects, curators, designers, conservators, critics, teachers, administrators, as well as many other professions.

For help with all aspects of professional development beyond your undergraduate degree, use the tools gathered at the department's Art Department Wordpress site.

Recent alumni have held the following positions:

  • Assistant for Exhibitions, Museum of Modern Art
  • Teacher, Potomac School District
  • Associate Director, Galerie Lelong
  • Design Consultant, Ethan Allen
  • Producer/Assistant Editor, IN DEMAND
  • Marketing Manager, Clear Channel Broadcasting

Facilities & Resources

 

  • The University offers merit awards to support emerging artists on campus, a program coordinated by the Office of Admissions.  For more information, please visit www.bucknell.edu/admissions/arts.
  • Large Art History courses are taught in an auditorium setting with a state-of-the-art digital projection system; small seminars are taught in an intimate classroom setting.
  • Studio Art Facilites include: Photography - a dark room and a multimedia lab with large scale digital printers and video editing equipment; Printmaking - a fully equipped printmaking studio with two Charles Brand lithography presses, an American French Tool etching press, and two additional etching presses; Painting - a dedicated studio located in the Art Barn complex; Sculpture - lab equipped to support a range of processes including woodworking, metal fabrication, moldmaking, and various mixed media techniques.
  • Visual Resource Center – To support the instruction and research needs of students and faculty, the department has a dedicated database of nearly 20,000 images.  New images are added almost daily in response to requests from faculty and students.
  • The Samek Gallery brings multiple exhibits to campus each year. At the gallery, students can study, curate, create installations and research art – and often meet the artists themselves.

Internships

Bucknell’s art and art history majors gain career experience through internships. Students have recently interned at the following locations:

  • National Gallery of Art
  • Art Institute of Chicago
  • Smithsonian Institution
  • Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art
  • Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

Other interns have worked at architectural and graphic design firms, media production companies, archaeological sites, art conservation labs, auction houses, and art galleries.

For Internship and other Opportunities in the Arts, visit the list of Links on our Art at Work Wordpress page.

Courses Offered

Studio Art:

Drawing
Painting
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture
Digital Photography
Graphic Design
Multimedia & Installation Art

Art History:

World Art I: Ancient to
   Medieval
World Art II: Renaissance to
   Contemporary
Introduction to Visual Culture
Visual Cultures of the
   Mediterranean
Castle, Cathedral, Cloister
Italian Renaissance Art
Northern Renaissance Art
Baroque Art
History of Western
   Architecture
Contemporary Art
19th Century Art
20th Century Art
Art and Architecture of the
   Islamic World
Museum Studies

Quick Facts

Number of full-time faculty: 7

Number of majors per class year: 20-25

Program Details

  • The Department of Art and Art History offers majors in both Studio Art and Art History
  • Students at all levels exhibit their works of art each spring at the Annual Student Art Show in the Samek Art Gallery
  • The Department and the Samek Art Gallery sponsor workshops, lectures, and gallery tours with visiting artists, critics, and historians
  • The University offers Art Merit Scholarships to support emerging artists on campus, a program coordinated by the Office of Admissions.  For more information, please contact the Office of Admissions or go to www.bucknell.edu/x32061.xml.
  • First-year students often join the Arts Residential College where students interested in the arts (art, music, theatre, dance, creative writing, etc.) live together and share a common course
  • The number of majors per class year is usually between 20-25
  • At the annual undergraduate art history symposium, upper-level students from universities across Pennsylvania present their research
  • Each year, art history students have the opportinity to explore the art world behind the scenes on the Rothschild New York City weekend
  • Annually, alumni working in New York City lead internship and career panels for art majors

Faculty

Students interact closely with faculty members who serve as mentors in coursework, independent research and internships. All faculty members are practicing artists or active scholars.

CORE FACULTY

Christiane Andersson
B.A. Tulane; Ph.D. Stanford
Scholarly interests: Renaissance art, images of women in art, censorship of art, museum studies

Tulu Bayar
Honors B.A. University of Ankara, Turkey; M.F.A. University of Cincinnati
Scholarly interests: historic and contemporary photographic processes, video, installation, multimedia

Anna Kell
BFA Miami University; MFA University of Florida
Scholarly interests: history of pattern and decoration, agriculture, mass-production, mediated environments, contemporary painting practices, installation art

Janice Mann
Honours B.A., Western Ontario; M.A., Ph.D. Columbia
Scholarly interests: Islamic art, medieval art, history of architecture, pilgrimage, cultural hybridity in pre-modern art

Joseph Meiser
B.F.A., Sculpture, Northern Kentucky University; M.F.A., Sculpture, Ohio University
Scholarly interests: sculpture, installation, and performance art

Rosalyn Richards
B.F.A. Rhode Island School of Design; M.F.A. Yale University School of Art
Scholarly interests: modern and contemporary collage/assemblage, contemporary printmaking and drawing

Roger Rothman
B.A. Princeton; M.F.A. Hunter College; Ph.D. Columbia
Scholarly interests: Dada, Surrealism, contemporary art and theory

 

Grants & Awards

Bucknell’s art and art history faculty members have recently received the following grants and awards:

  • Christiane Andersson: Served on Board of Advisers at the National Gallery of Art from 1998 to 2001 and was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 1999-2000
  • Tulu Bayar: 2011 Virginia Center for the Creative Arts fellowship; 2010 The Julia Margaret Cameron Award in Photography Honorable Mention; 2006 Camac Centre D'art Artist-in-Residency Grant funded by Fondation Frank Tènot and Office Regional Culturel de Champagne Ardenne, France; 2002 Center for Photography at Woodstock Artist-in-Residency Grant funded by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts
  • Anna Kell: 2012 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship, 2009 Integrative Teaching International Emerging Educator's Fellowship
  • Joseph Meiser: 2011 Tanne Foundation Award, 2009 C. Graydon and Mary Rogers Fellowship, Bucknell University
  • Rosalyn Richards: 2009 Third Prize Works on Paper, Art of the State, State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, and 2008 Pacific States Biennial National Print Exhibition, University of Hawaii, Hilo

Selected Faculty Publications and Exhibitions

  • Christiane Andersson's recent publications include: “The Language of the Nude,” an exhibition of drawings 1490-1850, in 2008, and a synthetic essay on Albrecht Dürer’s drawings in 2009.
  • Tulu Bayar’s award winning photographic work is to be published in The Book "The Julia Cameron Award 2010" in November 2010. Her recent selected exhibitions include: " I Do: Wedding Ceremonies," Solo Performance at Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York; "Crossroads/Seven Acts," Invitational Exhibition at Amos Eno Gallery, New York; "The Veil," Travelling Exhibition across the US 2008-2012 (accompanied by an exhibition catalog); "Exodus," Curated Exhibition at Diaspora Vibe Gallery, Miami, FL.
  • Anna Kell's recent exhibitions include: ARC Gallery in Chicago; Jolie Laide Gallery in Philadelphia; 3rd Ward in Brooklyn, New York; AC Institute & Caelum Gallery in New York City, NY
  • Janice Mann’s book Romanesque Architecture and Its Sculptural Decoration in Christian Spain, 1000-1200: Exploring Frontiers and Defining Identities published by University of Toronto Press in 2009.
  • Joseph Meiser has exhibited his artwork at venues across the country, including recent solo and two-person exhibitions at Northwestern University in Chicago, Western Washington University in Bellingham Washington, Jack the Pelican Presents in Brooklyn New York, Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, and The University of Wisconsin at Madison.
  • Rosalyn Richards’ work is to be included in a book on international contemporary printmaking published by The Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia. She has recently shown her work in 2010 at "The Science of Art", Desotorow Gallery, Savannah, GA, in 2009 at the Exhibition of Drawings at Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Tianjin, China, and the Qijiang International Print Invitational Exhibition, Chengdu, China, and in 2008 in a solo exhibition at the Abington Art Center in Jenkintown, PA.
  • Roger Rothman has recently published his scholarship in Modernism/modernity, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Konsthistorisk Tidskrift, French Cultural Studies and Word & Image.

Study Abroad

Students can study art and art history all over the world.  Most recently, students have studied in Austria, Australia, Czech Republic, England, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Sierra Leone, and Spain.

Graduate and Professional School

A number of art and art history majors choose to pursue post-graduate studies. Recent alumni have gone on to attend programs at:

  • American University
  • Bard Graduate School
  • Benjamin Cardozo School of Law
  • Bryn Mawr College
  • George Washington University
  • New York University
  • Parsons School of Design
  • Purdue University
  • Rutgers University
  • Savannah College of Art & Design
  • Sotheby's Institute of Art