Art

The study of Art is creatively and intellectually stimulating. Aside from being personally rewarding, it also has many practical benefits. It promotes problem solving, develops interpersonal skills and improves your ability to respond to and succeed in a changing marketplace.

Highly sought after in today’s economy, transferable skills are actively promoted by us during your studies at the School of Art. These skills include the ability to conduct research and interpret information, communicate ideas, develop critical and interdisciplinary thinking, work independently or as part of a creative team, and to stay motivated and focused on your goals.

Guest curators, visiting artists, and former students will share their experience and introduce you to a wide range of career possibilities. Exhibition openings and visiting days provide volunteer roles and paid ambassador opportunities. They give you the chance to interact with the public and communicate your knowledge and expertise.

Evidence shows that the majority of our graduates build careers in their chosen field. They establish themselves as professional artists, art historians, curators and administrators. Our graduates are professional painters, book illustrators, photographers, university educators, secondary school teachers, art gallery managers, exhibition curators, and conservators of easel painting, ceramics and works on paper. Their employers include the Arts Council, Royal Academy of Arts, Tate, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Royal Collections Trust.

At the School of Art, you will have access to state-of-the-art teaching facilities. The School has spacious, well-lit studios, darkrooms, print workshops, a Mac suite, as well as lecture theatres and seminar rooms. We also have a museum, modern galleries, and extensive art archives.

Within easy reach and used extensively in our teaching, these resources set the School of Art apart from most Fine Art and Art History programmes in Britain. You will be studying art and/or its histories surrounded by works of art from our internationally renowned museum collection.

Unique in Wales, and of international importance, our collections offer primary research material for staff, students and external scholars. The School of Art collections include European prints from the fifteenth century to the present day, as well as drawings, watercolours and photographs. A major strength of the collection is its representative holdings of early twentieth-century British Pioneer Studio Pottery.

Our teaching staff are exhibiting artists, publishing scholars and curators whose work provides a stimulating learning environment. 

Staff research informs our teaching and ensures that the skills you learn and the knowledge we impart are practice orientated and current. Our researchers regularly collaborate with museums, galleries and professional associations to exhibit artworks and publish research of national and international significance that has impact, scope and relevance. 

Our research on the twentieth-century artist-collector Hugh Blaker and the paintings at one time in his possession, for example, has led to the positive identification of a previously disputed portrait by Amadeo Modigliani as well as new insights on a canvas recently discovered by the Louvre Museum to be St Joseph the Carpenter – a master work by French Baroque painter Georges de La Tour – and provenance on an earlier version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. 

A significant aspect of our research in art history is concerned with the reassessment of artistic careers and the recuperation of traditional practices, especially those that have been marginalized or neglected: our staff have published on the French nineteenth-century painter, collector and horticulturist Gustave Caillebotte, the twentieth-century German photographer Erich Retzlaff, once renowned for depicting the land and people of Germany, and now lesser known Royal Academicians. More than a record of the past exhibitions, our catalogues raisonné on painter-printmakers such as Sydney Lee, Stanley Anderson and Charles Tunnicliffe now serve as standard references. 

Not restricted to visual and material culture, our interdisciplinary research also concerns music, spoken word, and sound. 

Aberystwyth University offers every student the opportunity to study, volunteer or work in another country either for an academic year, a single semester, or a few weeks during your holidays.

Find more information on our Global Opportunities webpages.

Aberystwyth University prides itself on being a bilingual University. As a leading Welsh university, we are proud to offer dedicated support services and Halls of Residence for Welsh-speaking students, encouraging the sense of community and the feeling of a home away from home. Qualifying students will automatically receive the University's Welsh-medium scholarships and can also apply for Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol scholarships. Find out more about our Welsh Medium Scholarships here.