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Welcome to the History of Art & Architecture

We study the art, architecture, and visual culture of the global past and present to understand our world today and create better futures. We adopt a capacious definition of art that explores all human creativity, regardless of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, or ability. Our mission is to expand our field which has entrenched an elitist and exclusionary worldview.

Highlights
Aerial view of the Frick Fine Arts building
Frick Fine Arts Library

The Frick Fine Arts Library has an outstanding research collection containing over 90,000 volumes.

People milling around an art gallery room
University Art Gallery

The University Art Gallery (UAG) is an open, flexible, and immersive laboratory for studying and displaying how art and visual objects generate knowledge and understanding of the world.

Student looks closely at a piece of artwork in a gallery
Constellations

The Constellations at the University of Pittsburgh are hubs of innovative practice that unite faculty and students across subfields in the Department of History of Art and Architecture.

A professor explains a piece of art to the class
Collecting Knowledge Pittsburgh

Collecting Knowledge Pittsburgh fosters opportunities for collaboration between Pitt faculty, students, and the local cultural sector.

Students watch a projected art display
Visual Media Workshop

The Visual Media Workshop is a humanities lab focused on the investigation of material and visual culture.

Students interacting with an architecture scale model
Prospective Students

Discover what makes the Department of History of Art & Architecture a standout program.

News

López wins CASVA's Wyeth Fellowship

Janina López was awarded a twenty-four month Wyeth Fellowship, a prestigious predoctoral fellowship from the National Art Gallery's Center for the Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), to support her dissertation research on the Roy

Bertagnolli takes "Art! With Dr. Ike, Ph.D." to Tinworks Art

Isaiah Bertagnolli (Ph.D. 2025) has partnered with contemporary art space Tinworks Art in Bozeman, Montana, for the fourth season of "Art! With Dr.