What if you could hang your work in the art department’s hallway, or better yet, any place on campus you think is begging for art...
Art is a creative and
expansive response to life
in visible form
Up Late, Laughing, Making Art
The energy in the studios is incredible the night before a critique. It’s that moment when what’s inside you wants to come out. Students are there supporting each other, rooting for each other.
An unparalleled experience for our majors is the New York Semester on Contemporary Art. This life-changing experience gets you on the train every week for guided tours of the most interesting work showing in the city. You’re immersed for a season and come out with a true understanding of how the global art world works.
Drew’s art major is growing because people are drawn to our community, our teaching style. Our faculty, all working artists, know the value of our focus on craft, content and critique. We support students and challenge them. We know what it is to innovate.
Students gain valuable experience running our campus art gallery. Curating and hanging shows gives you insight into the whys and hows of professional art career.
Internships at the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggenheim, the Jewish Museum, the Drawing Center—these are the kinds of real-world experiences Drew students have. Plus, many work as assistants to professional artists. The networking you can do while at Drew helps you enormously down the road.
Visual communication is booming in the digital age. People trained to express themselves visually are at a premium.
Drew is seeing an increase in art double majors as well, with combinations such as Art/Engineering, Art/Environmental Studies and Sustainability, and Art/Business Studies.
Full-Impact Students
Diana Ortiz
As a double major in art and economics, I enjoy the complexity and challenge of expressing the social activism of my artwork in the financial world. Similarly, art influences the way I look at economic models and development because I look out for the impact on social welfare.
Full-Impact Students
Andrew Pungot
One thing I love about Drew is how the professors approach their classes. Instead of forcing students to work in one style, they let us work in our own style, using techniques and skills taught in class.
Full-Impact Students
Kristen Hugg
All that I learned about contemporary art—from new ideas to the new and different mediums people are using—changed how I see my art and how I approach it.
Passionate Faculty
Michael Peglau
Professor
I’m both a painter and teacher of painting and drawing. My work has been shown in New York City and Cologne, Germany, among many cities. I have written on art theory and lectured on art with a particular focus on the expressive traditions rising out of the work of van Gogh. Find me on flickr.
Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh
Passionate Faculty
Claire Sherman
Assistant professor
I teach 2-D and 3-D design, painting and drawing. In my own work, I address tragedy, romanticism and ambivalence in painting. I recently received a Drew Faculty Research Grant to go to Death Valley to take photographs that I will use to begin new paintings in my Brooklyn studio. View my site.
M.F.A., The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Passionate Faculty
Lee Arnold
Assistant professor
I teach digital imaging, video and animation. My work explores the nature of time and perception in variety of media. A recent project of mine, The Magic Mountain, paired an 8mm film I shot in Switzerland with a Richard Strauss symphony. View my site.
M.F.A., University of Pennsylvania
Passionate Faculty
Raymond Saá Stein
Associate professor & chair
I teach drawing, ceramics and sculpture. My work’s been shown in New York, Dallas, Miami, San Juan, Kuala Lumpur and more. View my site.
M.F.A., Parsons School of Design
Passionate Faculty
Rebecca Soderholm
Assistant professor
I’m working on making portrait and landscape photographs for a project called “The League of Peace and Power.” I take great satisfaction in seeing students become more confident about engaging with the world, while they figure out how to turn what’s in front of their cameras into photographs. View my site.
A visiting performance artist helps Drew students put art in unexpected places.
My Favorite Course
“It truly gave me the freedom to work with any content matter in whatever medium I chose. I no longer felt like a student, but like a real artist working in my own studio.”
An introduction to the visual elements that constitute the basic issues of two-dimensional design. Primary goals are the development of technical and critical skills as they apply to painting, drawing, and graphic traditions. Investigates aspects of color, line, form, texture, and space through workshops and outside assignments. The foundation course for the intermediate- and upper-level studio courses.
Offered: every semester.
ART 106 - Drawing I (4)
An introduction to drawing as a way of making images, as a basis for work in other media, and as a process of discovery. Studio activities are grounded in observation and use various wet and dry media. Line, shape, and value are emphasized as basic components for exploring fundamental issues of composition, the structuring of form, the description of space and light, and as a means of individual expression.
Offered: every semester.
ART 202 - Painting I (4)
An exploration of traditional and modern techniques of oil painting and their underlying theories of light, color, space, and expression.
Offered: annually.
Prerequisite: ART 104, ART 106, 22, or permission of instructor.
II. Sculpture (4 credits)
ART 108 - Three-Dimensional Design (4)
An introduction to the technical and conceptual basis for the organization and development of three-dimensional structures. Examines the function of space, volume, mass, plane, and line. Explores sculptural issues through the solution of design problems. Uses a variety of materials for physical and expressive qualities. Extensive out-of-class assignments supplement studio practice. Emphasizes the development of critical skills as they apply to visual aesthetic issues.
Offered: fall semester.
ART 208 - Sculpture I (4)
An investigation of materials and processes, and conceptual and aesthetic concerns of sculpture. Students learn basic properties of various sculptural materials and consider the relationship between materials and ideas. Introduction to additive and subtractive processes, casting, assemblage, and mixed media serves as a vehicle for formal and expressive exploration, as well as consideration of fundamental sculptural issues, including space, time, scale, reference, content, and context. Studio activities are informed by intensive examination of contemporary and historic three-dimensional art through discussion and field trips.
Offered: annually.
III. Photography and Printmaking (4 credits)
ART 130 - Photography I (4)
An introduction to the fundamentals of photographing with digital SLR cameras, along with using a range of digital imaging editing tools and output modes to produce original work. Students are encouraged to make pictures that are challenging in both content and form and express the complex and poetic nature of human experience. The course introduces the work of influential photographers, raises discussions of contemporary issues in the medium and provides tools for evaluating and expressing a photograph's communicative effectiveness. Students must provide a fully manual digital SLR camera and budget for printing costs and other supplies.
Offered: every semester.
ART 250 - Printmaking: Relief (4)
The technical and expressive potentialities of wood and linoleum cutting, collography, and monoprinting. Color and combined media processes are emphasized. Development of individual pictorial language follows a period of technical introduction and experimentation. Critiques as well as gallery and museum visits supplement the creative process.
Offered: spring semester in even-numbered years.
Prerequisite: ART 104, ART 106, or 22, or permission of instructor.
ART 252 - Printmaking: Intaglio (4)
Traditional and contemporary modes of intaglio plate-making processes are covered, as well as the development of imagery and expression appropriate to the media. Engraving, drypoint, various etching methods, embossing, and color printing processes are explored. Critiques are conducted regularly throughout the semester. Museum and gallery visits.
Offered: spring semester in odd-numbered years.
Prerequisite: ART 104, ART 106, or 22, or permission of instructor.
ART 254 - Printmaking: Lithography (4)
An introduction to stone and/or plate lithography by way of examining the chemistry of the planographic process and its visual outcome. Emphasizes control of the image-making process. Develops students' pictorial language through discussions and museum and gallery visits.
Offered: Offering to be determined.
Prerequisite: ART 104, ART 106, or 22 or permission of instructor.
ART 256 - Printmaking: Serigraphy (4)
A study of techniques and concepts behind the silk-screen process as an art form. Explores a variety of negative and positive stencil-making methods. Covers registration procedures for multicolor printing and the making of editions. Emphasizes the exploration of the visual language. Discussions are conducted regularly. Museum and gallery visits.
Offered: Offering to be determined.
Prerequisite: ART 104, ART 106, or 22, or permission of instructor.
IV. Digital Art (4 credits)
ART 120 - Digital Imaging (4)
This course introduces the computer as a fine arts tool, and provides an overview of digital arts concepts and terminology. Students will solve design problems using a variety of computer software applications. Critical awareness of new media in a historical context is encouraged through lectures, discussion and critiques.
Offered: fall and spring semesters.
ART 220 - Digital Video (4)
Introduces digital video as a creative tool and offers a technical understanding of the video camera and non-linear editing. Students will learn to manipulate time, space and sound to create sequential, narrative and experimental works. Projects explore both formal and conceptual issues integral to the history of video and filmmaking.
Offered: spring semester.
V. Art History (12 - 16 credits)
Depending on the number of credits taken for ART 385.
ARTH 101 - Western Art I: Ancient and Medieval (4)
This course explores the art and architecture of the ancient and medieval eras, including study of the cultures of the Mediterranean, Near East, and northern Europe. Students will master a chronological history of representation and investigate the relationship between works of art and the cultures in which they were produced.
Offered: fall semester.
ARTH 102 - Western Art II: Pre-Modern and Modern (4)
This course is a chronological survey of western art and architecture from the fourteenth century through the early twentieth century. It explores various geographic regions and diverse contexts, religious, social, political and economic, in which the works were made. Key art historical periods such as the Renaissance, the Baroque, and subsequent movements such as Romanticism, Impressionism, and Modernism are discussed. Students will master a chronological history of art and architecture in relation to the cultures in which they were produced.
Offered: spring semester.
ARTH 306 - Early 20th-Century Art (4)
This course focuses on painting and sculpture in the first half of the 20th century, exploring the revolutionary styles developed during this period. Subjects discussed include artists' preoccupation with the "primitive" and the unconscious, the concept of an "avant-garde" and the rise of the artistic manifesto, and the development of abstract visual languages.
Offered: annually.
ARTH 385 - New York Semester on Contemporary Art (4-8)
The New York Semester on Contemporary Art offers students the unique and exciting opportunity to learn about the ongoing history of art since 1945 through the combination of reading, class presentation and discussion, and visits to artists' studios, museum and gallery exhibitions and public art projects. By pursuing each of these paths of discovery students learn about the major movements associated with the postwar period (Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Minimalism, Feminist Art, and others) as well as overarching themes of expression (identity, for example), changing processes and modes of making, interpretive methodologies, expanding definitions of art, relationships between art theory and practice, and the roles of art institutions and cultural workers (critics, curators, historians) in mediating our experience of contemporary art.
Signature of instructor required for registration.
Offered: fall semester.
Prerequisite: ARTH 306.
VI. Intermediate and Upper Level (10 credits)
ART 310 - Artist Writes (2)
Studio art majors will create and maintain their own artist's blog in which they will publish an artist statement, work portfolio, and respond to art exhibitions and art criticism. Students will write about their own practice as well as curate and publish an art journal connected to their developing identity as an artist.
ART 400 - Selected Studio Projects (4)
An intensive studio practice designed for art majors working toward senior exhibition. Provides a basic framework to aid independent investigation, stressing the development of individual ideas and expression.
Signature of instructor required for registration.
Course may be repeated.
Offered: fall semester.
ART 402 - Advanced Studio Projects (4)
A continuation of ART 400 with even greater emphasis upon building a body of work that clearly reflects the individual's sensibility and ideas, culminating in a senior thesis exhibition in late April or early May in the Korn Gallery. Weekly critiques are conducted by the instructor and visiting artists.
Signature of instructor required for registration.
Offered: spring semester.
Prerequisite: ART 400.
VII. Capstone (1-4 credits)
ART 300 - Independent Study in Art (1-4)
Signature of instructor required for registration.
ART 400 - Selected Studio Projects (4)
An intensive studio practice designed for art majors working toward senior exhibition. Provides a basic framework to aid independent investigation, stressing the development of individual ideas and expression.
Signature of instructor required for registration.
Course may be repeated.
Offered: fall semester.
ART 402 - Advanced Studio Projects (4)
A continuation of ART 400 with even greater emphasis upon building a body of work that clearly reflects the individual's sensibility and ideas, culminating in a senior thesis exhibition in late April or early May in the Korn Gallery. Weekly critiques are conducted by the instructor and visiting artists.
Signature of instructor required for registration.
Offered: spring semester.
Prerequisite: ART 400.
Note
All majors are expected to attend Art Department events, including guest lectures, gallery talks, exhibition receptions, workshops, and to participate in student exhibition programs.
A portfolio of high quality may be presented to the chair of the department to seek exemption from an entry-level course. If granted, students must make up the credits with an additional studio arts course.
