Welcome

Welcome to the ART DEPARTMENT!

To Declare a Major in Art History, Art Studio, or Art History & Studio, first choose a faculty advisor and make an appointment to discuss your courses for next semester. Next, fill out the departmental Major Declaration Form appropriate to your route to the major, Art History, Art Studio, or Art History & Studio before you meet with your advisor. With your advisor’s approval then fill out the Registrar’s Declare Major Form.

Making and Studying Art Go Hand in Hand

The Williams art department is unparalleled among liberal arts colleges for its size and course offerings, its remarkable local resources, and the long history and strength of its major program. Occupying two buildings and sharing premises with the Williams College Museum of Art, the art department is one of the largest at the college. The department offers much more than a rich array of courses in studio art and art history. Art professors engage with students in diverse spaces, from the classroom and the studio to museums in Williamstown and beyond. Students benefit from an array of opportunities—critiques, lectures, exhibitions, travel, and internships—as they progress through the program.

Majors take the helm when it comes to events in the art department.  The Art Majors’ Committee shapes departmental life outside the classroom, designing and organizing a range of events, from panel discussions and study sessions to informal lunches with professors. Students nominated to participate in the 1960’s Scholars Program invite outside speakers to campus, creating some of the most anticipated and exciting arts programming at the College from the ground up. Students exhibit their own work throughout the year in the Wilde Gallery in the W. L. S. Spencer Studio Art Building and at the annual Senior Studio Art Exhibition at the Williams College Museum of Art. Opportunities to present research projects in a public setting, to study alongside graduate students, and to interact with renowned scholars in residence at the Clark further broaden the experiential scope of majoring in art at Williams.