The UCLA Department of Art History was one of the first in the United States to embrace a mission of comprehensive global coverage.

With this mission, the department has educated undergraduate and graduate students for decades with a broad-based understanding of art that comes from exposure to the artistic practices of a variety of “western” and “non-western” cultures through time and space.

With its requirements for study across the globe and for foreign language training above and beyond the college obligation, our department seeks to encourage students to question the art historical canon, to rethink the relationships between margins and centers, and to practice a socially and politically responsible art history.