Art History and Art Curatorship

The Art History and Art Curatorship program researches and develops knowledge in the history art.

Lyndell Brown/Charles Green, 100 Years of Turbulence 1
Lyndell Brown/Charles Green, 100 Years of Turbulence 1 2018, inkjet print on rag paper, 110 cms high x 430 cms wide. Edition of 5 plus 2 artist proofs. Courtesy ARC One Gallery, Melbourne. This work was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant.

Art History and Art Curatorship at Melbourne

In an increasingly image-based and fast changing world, the evidence-based critical thinking and visual and aesthetic literacy that the program teaches prepares students for a richer engagement with the world and for a wide variety of professional careers and daily life.

Our academic staff have expertise in a variety of subjects across the discipline including:

  • Indigenous art
  • Australian art
  • Asian art
  • European art
  • Modern and Contemporary art
  • Globalisation and cross-cultural exchange
  • Art theory
  • Curatorship
  • Museum and exhibition studies
  • History and theory of art conservation

View our staff

Featured research

As the first university art history program established in Australia, we have a long record of leading research in multiple fields. The program hosts the Australian Institute of Art History and, in partnership with the Victorian College of Arts, founded the University of Melbourne’s Centre of Visual Art (CoVA).

Emerging from CoVA, academics from our program and CoVA edit the refereed art history journal Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art and lead the Postnational art histories group, which examines the restlessness of contemporary thinking in extra-national and global contingencies of art.

As well as Australian art and European art, the program has recently developed a major focus on Asian art, which includes the Asian Art Research group and the Network for Islamic and Southeast Asian Art, and a unique cross-disciplinary research group of artists, archaeologists and art historians, Rock Art in the Expanded Field, which promotes awareness of rock art in Australia.

More featured research

Study with us

Learn about applying for our programs, including courses taught on-site in New York, Florence and Central Australia, that provide intensive learning experiences and rare access to important collections.

Undergraduate

Graduate coursework

Graduate research

We support students with access to vital resources in the arts, including object-based learning through Arts West, Museums and Collections and the Visual Cultures Resource Centre (VCRC), which has an image collection of more than 250,000 slides, photographs and digital records.

Meet our Art History and Art Curatorship staff

Our academic staff includes scholars and museum professionals who are leaders in their field, from medieval art to modernism, the history and theory of art conservation, curatorship and beyond.

Art History and Art Curatorship honorary staff


Banner image: Buxton Contemporary
Installation view, ‘The shape of things to come’,
works by Helen Johnson, Marco Fusinato, Hany Armanious, Mikala Dwyer, Shaun Gladwell
Installation view courtesy of Christian Capurro
Image courtesy of Buxton Contemporary