The Department of Art & Art History is housed in Melchers Hall, the right wing of the duPont arts complex. Seven full-time faculty and four adjunct faculty, all active professionally, teach over 50 courses each year in art and art history. The department has over 150 declared majors and houses seven art studios, a darkroom, two art history lecture rooms, a seminar room, and a digital media lab. Our department blog, artarthistory.umwblogs.org is our go-to venue for everything art: current events, alumni information, local, regional and national exhibitions, faculty information, course listings, and our Department Handbook. Melchers on the Porch, located on our second floor landing offers students a place to engage in lively discussions about art in a more casual environment.
Dedicated to the advancement of creativity, we are leaders in digital initiatives. Our lab includes fifteen iMacs, each equipped with the latest version of Adobe Creative Suite. Our majors can expect close working relationships with their faculty and active and engaging discussions about art. Upper-level students have a number of opportunities to work on more focused scholarly research under the formats of internships, individual studies, URES, and Honors. Our students are regular recipients of the College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Grants and we offer a healthy number of departmental scholarships and awards, including the Rosalie Chauncey Scholarship for the Study of Painting in France.
The department is an active participant in Fredericksburg’s First Fridays art openings and our students oversee the Visitors Center’s Gallery VC which features student work on a monthly basis. We are regular participants in the annual outdoor art project,; Via Colori, and our students exhibit in downtown venues including Libertytown Arts Center, the Old Stone Warehouse, Brushstrokes Gallery, and the Backdoor Gallery.