Welcome

Joining the faculties and resources of two strong departments, the Graduate Program in the History of Art and Architecture replaces the Ph.D. programs in Art History and Architectural History at the University of Virginia. Over 23 faculty teach in diverse fields with particularly strong concentrations in Ancient, Renaissance, Modern, American, and Asian art and architecture. Our large faculty enables us to offer both a wide range of graduate courses and a faculty/student ratio that encourages close faculty mentoring of each student in the program.

The Art History program recently received a major gift endowing the Carl H. and Martha S. Lindner Center for Art History. This Center provides significant new financial resources for the merged graduate program, notably for funding graduate student research and students’ public presentation of their work. In addition, a competitive fellowship program is available for entering students, which includes the five-year Jefferson Scholars Fellowships and the President’s Fellowships, as well as a range of other financial aid packages.

Fayerweather Hall

Fayerweather Hall has recently been thoroughly renovated for the McIntire Department of Art as the new home of the Carl H. and Martha S. Lindner Center for Art History. Originally constructed in 1893-94 as the Fayerweather Gymnasium, the building was remodeled in 1924 and more extensively in 1938 to serve the School of Architecture, which occupied Fayerweather until 1970, when it moved into its current quarters in Campbell Hall. The Art Department has occupied the building since then. In summer 2006, after a gutting of the interior and restoration of the exterior, the Art History program moved back to Fayerweather into completely new facilities housed on three floors. The ground floor includes the Visual Resources Collection, an archaeology workspace, and a department lounge opening into a patio and garden. The main floor houses the Art Department’s offices and three seminar rooms equipped with fully current audio-visual systems. The top floor is a mezzanine around an atrium opening onto the main floor. Around the atrium are faculty offices, as well as an office for teaching assistants and a graduate student computer room. A notable feature of the renovation was the removal of a hung ceiling installed in 1938, exposing the turned oak truss system of the original building design. Another original architectural element, a long skylight monitor, was also restored, flooding the mezzanine and main floor atrium with light. The renovated Fayerweather has let us bring together Art History faculty and facilities formerly scattered through five buildings, and presents us with an opportunity for a physical as well as an intellectual community, particularly for the newly merged Graduate Program in the History of Art and Architecture.