Graduate Study

The Art Business Programme prepares students for careers in many sectors of international art enterprise.

Various professions such as auctioneer, dealer, consultant, curator, investor, insurer, lawyer and critic are explored, and relevant professional art-world practice is studied, including marketing, the media, information technology, art content production, business communications, investment, insurance, valuation, art law and economics.

The Programme in Contemporary Art involves students in the study of art and its relationship to historical, social, political and economic change in the period 1945 to the present.

Students gain an understanding of the connections between dominant cultural and philosophical ideas of the period and the visual languages of art, thereby recognising creative links and attaining critical insight.

With an eye toward future career planning, students visit commercial galleries, auction houses, art consultancies, private collections, public museums and institutions, and become familiar with their differing characteristics and how they function.

The Programme in American Fine and Decorative Art prepares students in the understanding of art history as it relates to the cultural, historical, and stylistic significance of paintings, furniture, and decorative objects from the colonial period through to the modernist movements of the first half of the twentieth century.

Museum-based sessions, visits to conservation studios, object-handling workshops, technical discussions, regional study trips, as well as lectures and seminars on American collecting, patronage, museum curatorship and the art market constitute the course of study.

Students develop the skills of connoisseurship and debate issues of damage and restoration.