Study at the nexus of New York City’s art, design, and cultural communities. Gain a global perspective through rigorous inquiry, collaborative study, and direct engagement with museum collections, preparing you for influential roles within the art world.
Connect to New York’s Art, Design, and Cultural Worlds
Learning at the nexus of NYC arts and cultural communities, our students consider their discipline within larger social, cultural, and political contexts. With class sizes of just 8–12, you’ll collaborate closely with your classmates and faculty and work directly with museum collections and archives.
An Interdisciplinary, Versatile Degree
IXD students Wuke Zhou, Yuki Shimano, and Olivia Turpin at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (photo by Shih Wen Huang)
Gain necessary skills and knowledge for a career as an art and design historian or a museum, gallery, auction house, library, or archive professional, or prepare for doctoral studies. By studying global art and design through multidisciplinary and cultural contexts and intensive specialized research, you’ll become an independent and critical thinker and writer, with an understanding of the historical role of art and design.
Open to Students of Different Backgrounds
We welcome students with a range of backgrounds, including those who are pivoting in their careers. This variety of experience adds richness to our program, and our students share a passion for art and design.
Internships at Renowned Organizations
Internships at museums, libraries, nonprofit art organizations, and galleries prepare you for future careers. Our recent students have interned at prestigious institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, World Monuments Fund, and others.
Explore Art Abroad While Earning Credits
Nothing compares to studying art in situ. Pratt has deep connections with university partners around the world. You will have the opportunity to gain credits during these programs—as much as a semester’s worth during two- to six-week summer programs like Pratt in London, Pratt in Paris, and Pratt in Venice, which recently celebrated its 35th year.
The graduate studies in the History of Art and Design provide students with the skills and knowledge to pursue careers as art and design historians and professionals in museums, galleries, and libraries, or to pursue graduate work at the doctoral level. Through comprehensive study of global art and design within historical and cultural contexts and intensive research and scholarship in specialized areas, students develop a critical understanding of the field as well as research and analytical skills. Graduates demonstrate excellence in independent and critical thinking and understanding of the historical roles and responsibilities of art and design. Internships at museums, libraries, nonprofit art organizations, and galleries provide opportunities for students to work in professional areas of their interests and prepare for future careers.
Our Faculty: Experts and Mentors
Our faculty are leading scholars and practitioners who are experts in their fields. They are deeply engaged in expanding their disciplines and building equity through their own work in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. See all History of Art and Design faculty and administrators.
Our graduates are leading thriving careers at notable organizations, including the New York Public Library Archives and Manuscripts Division, Princeton University Library Rare Books and Special Collections, and the Whitney Museum. They are also uniquely prepared for advanced research and study, earning placements in prestigious graduate programs such as Harvard University, the University of Southern California, the University of Edinburgh, Oxford University, and the Victoria and Albert/Royal College of Art master’s programs.
Career Support for Life
Students and alumni can schedule one-on-one appointments with career strategists in Pratt’s Center for Career and Professional Development. A career strategist can work with you to develop your job/internship search strategies and life and business plans, as well as review résumés, cover letters, websites, and other marketing materials.
You are invited to an HAD Faculty Conversations by Alex Todd, “‘All this repeats”: Wild Plakken and the neo-avant-garde.”
* This event is for Pratt community only.
Date: Thursday, February 26th
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Venue: Main 210
About the Project: When describing its practice in 1979, the Dutch graphic design collective Wild Plakken (1977–1996) made a claim to situate itself within a historical lineage of political, avant-garde graphic design in the Netherlands. Outlining the visual and political context in which it was working, the collective referenced its own connection to the “progressive ideas” of the 1920s and 30s, and suggested that the themes of the inter-war period could be seen to be repeating in the 1970s and 1980s. Taking this claim as a starting point, this talk will examine the ways in which Wild Plakken’s practice can be understood in relation to notions of the “neo-avant-garde” and — more broadly — as an attempt to recall the spirit of inter-war graphic design in order to reject, or challenge, the visual and political moment of the 1980s Netherlands.
About the Speaker:Dr Alex J. Todd is a design historian and faculty member in the History of Art and Design department at Pratt Institute. Alex Received his MA from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London and his PhD from the History of Art and Design programme at the University of Brighton, where his dissertation focused on the political practice of the Dutch graphic design collective Wild Plakken. Alex is also the Student Officer for the Design History Society and co-lead of the Design Activism strand of the Centre for Design History.
The History of Art and Design Department is pleased to announce the following study abroad opportunities for Summer 2026:
Pratt in London: Museums on Site (3 credits, Prof. Sarah Lichtman) / 2 weeks June 1-12th.
Pratt in Paris: Art on Site (3 credits, Prof. Karyn Zieve) / 3 weeks
June 29-July 21st.
Pratt in Paris: Design on Site (3 credits, Prof. Anca Lasc) / 3 weeks
June 29-July 21st.
Info session: February 3, 2026 @ 5pm on Zoom
For more information and to apply, please find our programs on Terra Dotta:
https://pratt-sa.terradotta.com/index.cfm?FuseAction=Abroad.Home
Welcome to a new semester of creativity, growth, and discovery. Even as the blizzard blankets the world outside, we’re excited to see the inspiring work our community will bring to life this year.
Sarah Lichtman will be speaking on the panel “Structures of Success: Women Leading in Architecture and Design” at The Winter Show on January 31, 3:00–4:00 PM.
Click the link in the bio for more HAD Faculty News.
#ArtHistory #art #historyofart #ArtAndDesign #pratthad #pratt #historyofdesign
You are invited to “A Brief Tour Through Drag History,” by Jacob Bloomfield.
* This event is for Pratt community only.
Date: Tuesday, February 3rd
Time: 5:30-7:00 pm
Venue: Alumni Reading Room
About the Project: In this talk, Dr Jacob Bloomfield (author of Drag: A British History) provides a survey of the history of drag performance. Seasoned drag scholars will discover new faces, places, and anecdotes in drag history while newcomers will get acquainted with the basics, including styles of drag, major flashpoints in the art form’s history, and the very origins of the term ‘drag’. Throughout, Bloomfield demonstrates that drag’s popularity long predates RuPaul’s Drag Race. Historically, drag performers have been some of the most renowned artists of their day, prominent throughout the media landscape in theatre, visual arts, early film, early television, and even early gramophone record and radio. This was despite — and in some cases due to — the controversy the art form sometimes aroused.
About the Speaker: Jacob Bloomfield is a Zukunftskolleg Associated Fellow at the University of Konstanz and an Honorary Researcher at the University of Kent. Jacob is the author of Drag: A British History (University of California Press, 2023). His latest article, ‘“Little Richard: Down, Not Out”: The Quasar of Rock’s LGBTQ Iconicity and the Historical Reception to His Sexuality and Gender Presentation, 1955-Present’, appears in the January 2026 issue of the Journal of the History of Sexuality.
#art #pratthad #ArtHistory #pratt #historyofart #ArtAndDesign #historyofdesign
You are invited to "Otl Aicher’s Designs for Development," by Eric Anderson.
Date: Thursday, November 20th
Time: 5:45pm
Venue: Alumni Reading Room
About the Project: As a founder of the Hochschule für Gestaltung Ulm and creator of graphic identities for Lufthansa and the Munich Olympics, Otl Aicher has been celebrated for his role in establishing modern design as a pillar of post-Nazi West German culture. This talk examines a different and little-known facet of Aicher’s career, his contribution to the globally emergent field of design for development. Traveling to India in 1960, Aicher made design proposals to support economic and social programs in the newly independent nation. Examining Aicher’s unpublished travel reports, held today in the HfG Archives, the talk considers the designer’s work in India in relation to the Ulm School’s influential systems-design method, Third World politics, and postcolonial debates on development.
About the Speaker: Eric Anderson is Professor and Chair of the Theory and History of Art and Design department at Rhode Island School of Design. A historian of modern design, his research interests include interiors and domesticity, exhibitions and media, the cultural history of Vienna and psychoanalysis, and the global history of modernism. He recently completed a manuscript titled The Chromatic Unconscious, on Sigmund Freud and Viennese design before 1900, and is currently beginning a new project, Ulm in the World, on the West German school’s transnational networks, development pedagogy, and geopolitical engagements in the 1960s.
You are invited to an HAD Faculty Conversations by Philip Ording, “Anni Albers’s Trigonometry”
* This event is for the Pratt community.
Date: Thursday, November 20th
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Venue: Main 210
About the Project: Anni Albers (1899-1994) is perhaps most widely known as a textile artist but she was also an accomplished printmaker. This talk will present ongoing research into the geometric character of Albers’s graphic work, with a focus on trigonal designs. These works—etchings, screen prints, and photo-offsets—display intricacies that approach symmetry while skirting it. Our aim is to explore this effect in different contexts that hopefully shed light on how it is achieved. This is joint work with Brenda Danilowitz.
About the Speaker: Philip Ording is a mathematician and writer whose work explores the intersections of mathematics, art, and language. He is Associate Professor in the Department of Math & Science and a Center K-12 Instructor.
The Design Gallery in the Design Building second floor
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