Department Information
About
Brigham Young University’s Department of Art offers an exceptional student experience with undergraduate and graduate degrees in Art and Art Education. Although our facilities and faculty specialize in certain disciplines, including painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, new genre (video, installation, performance, digital), photography, and printmaking, students are free to explore a variety of mediums and methodologies throughout their studies. This learning is supplemented by a wealth of opportunities outside of the classroom, including study abroad programs, internships, and department-organized field trips to major art sites. Our students regularly move on to respected graduate programs, and to work as professional artists, teachers, designers, architects, and more.
Explore our site to see student and faculty work, learn more about our degree programs and find how BYU’s Department of Art can help you grow as an artist and as a human being.
History
The Department of Fine Art was originally organized in 1906, and throughout its history was associated with a number of different colleges, including the School of Arts and Sciences (1920-1921), the College of Arts and Sciences (1921-1925), the College of Fine Arts (1925-1964), and the College of Fine Arts and Communications (1964-present). The Department of Art and the Design Department have been closely linked throughout their respective histories and share some resources in common, but function as two separate entities within BYU's College of Fine Arts and Communications.
Mission
The Department of Art is a vibrant community of students, artists, and scholars working together to teach and mentor students in making art with integrity and thinking critically with a foundation in the Gospel.
Vision
As students, artists, and scholars we will work to be active citizens exploring and positively contributing to the world.
Values
Our values are in accordance with our mission and the stated aims of a BYU Education:
- Challenge ourselves to engage with diverse perspectives
- Encourage a strong artistic voice through thoughtful engagement with art, pedagogies, and scholarship.
- Foster creativity and scholarship by developing technical, critical, and philosophical skills within continuously evolving and rigorous curricula in both traditional and contemporary art and education
- Engage with difficult concepts and weigh the value, utility, and application of art and ideas in a complicated and connected society
- Engaging in contemporary critical thought while maintaining a relationship with Christ and a strong sense of self
- Affirming that art can be an exploration of ideas, a dialogue with cultures and traditions both past and present, and that it can involve the expression, communication, and reception of spiritual insights and values
- Supporting a community that actively shares beliefs and provides models for living a faithful and thoughtful life as an artist
- Promoting a sense of belonging among all those who come into contact with our department
- Demonstrate the importance of art in life and society as well as its role in facilitating increased sensitivity to the nuances of the human experience
- Consider, recognize, and appreciate the multitude of perspectives and experiences bound up in each individual, and furthermore affirm the value and divine potential of every person’s life and work
- Encourage careful listening as well as thoughtful, honest speech and action
- Establish partnerships that support artistic aspirations, enrich lives, and encourage service and leadership
- Model hard and honest work in the creation of art and the exploration of ideas with a range of approaches and applications
- Contributing to society as artists, scholars, and teachers in ways that are harmonious with our beliefs and gospel principles
- Cultivating curiosity about and engagement with the world’s past, present, and future as our ideas and art evolve
- Seeking continual growth as artists and thinkers, pursuing new knowledge through both individual and collaborative research and artistic pursuits
- Affirming that art and artists have the potential to contribute in meaningful ways to the world
- Providing opportunities for experience-based research, learning, and creative projects that develop faith, intellect, and character along with the skills and desire to continue in learning, civility, and service