Course General Description

SVA offers a non-degree art history program that is geared for the practicing artist, not the scholar. In addition to the benefit of taking Art History classes in New York City, SVA students have access to a faculty of more than 60 instructors who are artists, curators and critics. You might ask, why study the old when the artist's work is the new? Well, for one thing, art history is a chance to learn that you haven't reinvented the wheel. Studying the vast image bank across time and space will show you that nothing under the ancient eye of the sun is truly new, that movements beget movements, which beget movements, which...and here you are, toiling happily away on the great cultural continuum.

School General Description

Welcome to New York City, SVA’s hometown, and the leader of today’s creative economy, with more than 14,000 creative businesses and nonprofits. According to the EY Global Talent in Global Cities 2015 study, New York attracts more creative talent than any other city in the world because it “enjoys a unique cultural scene, embedded in a cosmopolitan and forward-thinking urban environment.” There is no better place to study, practice and work as a creative professional. Critique is a vital and challenging part of the educational experience in a college of art and design. Participating in this practice requires students to be open and vulnerable while they present their work for discussion and questioning, and to trust the transformative powers of the process in service of the work. Through the frequent repetition of this act of openness, students and faculty share and strengthen their humanity, empathy and kinship and their work evolves.