Vassar College Art Department | Top Liberal Arts College Art Program

viewers at the Maggi art exhibition at the Loeb

Art Department

Art Department

Art Department

The department offers majors or correlates in Art History and Studio Art, as well as a track in architecture. Enriched by a comprehensive college art museum, both majors culminate in a one-semester senior thesis or independent studio project.

Events

Detail of a tapestry with soldiers on horses.

The Agnes Rindge Claflin Lecture: “Fashioning Rule: How the Normans Built, Stitched, and Wrote Their Way into English Kingship”

Nov. 19, 2026, 5:30–7:00 p.m.

Lisa Reilly ’78, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History and Director of the Undergraduate Architectural History Program at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, explores how the Normans drew on both Anglo-Saxon and continental traditions to craft an image of themselves as legitimate rulers, and what that tells us about the power of images to make a kingdom.

This event is free and open to the public.

News

Attendees engage in conversation at the opening of the exhibition "Women's Work: Organizing New York Independent Film & Video" at Vassar College.

Vassar Institute Signature Program Focuses on Preserving and Showing Women’s Work in Independent Film

Vassar hosted a three-day conference at the Vassar Institute for the Liberal Arts celebrating the work of women independent filmmakers, some of whom championed social justice causes for more than 50 years.

New Grant for the Loeb for Important Painting Conservation

The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center has secured a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation for the conservation of “Lyric,” a 1951 oil on canvas by the late American artist Joan Mitchell (1925–1992).

Gothic-style stone building on the Vassar campus framed by autumn trees with sunlight streaming through the leaves.

New Faculty Members Bring Expertise Spanning Virology to Volcanoes

Vassar’s new tenure track faculty members bring a wealth of talent and expertise to the campus.

Photo portrait of someone standing in front of a stone wall.

Yvonne Elet, Professor of Art, Receives Major Book Prize

Yvonne Elet was awarded the Elizabeth Blair Macdougall Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians for her book Urban Landscape in the Third Rome: Raphael’s Villa and Mussolini’s Forum, which explores the twentieth-century recreation of the “Renaissance” gardens of Villa Madama, planned by Raphael, and “details how the restored villa came to be integrated into one of the most significant urban initiatives of the 20-year Fascist rule.”

Lisa Gail Collins, Professor of Art and Director of American Studies on the Sarah Gibson Blanding Chair, Wins Bard Graduate Center’s Horowitz Prize & Getty Fellowship

Lisa has received multiple accolades for her book Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt (U. of Washington Press, 2023; paperback, 2025), including Bard Graduate Center’s Horowitz Book Prize. She was also selected as a 2025–2026 Getty Scholar, which will allow her to deepen her new book project “tending towards” during a residential fellowship at the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

An abstract style of photograph of a person on a platform connected to a metal chair.

Studio Art Faculty Member Gordon Hall Presents Exhibition and Performance at The Kitchen, NYC

History mentions Assistant Professor of Art Petya Andreeva in “The Mystery of Siberia’s ‘Ice Maiden’ Mummy”

The late Andrew Tallon, Associate Professor of Art, was profiled in BARSC on his contribution to the restoration of the world famous Notre-Dame Cathedral.

People standing around looking a some blueprints

Papers of Pioneering Architect Jeh Vincent Johnson Come Home to Vassar

Architectural drawings and personal papers of the late Jeh Vincent Johnson, a renowned architect who taught architectural design at Vassar, were donated to Vassar by his family and are now housed in the College’s Archives and Special Collections Library.