Subject overview
Rated in the top 3 in the UK for research in the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). 100 per cent of our research was rated as recognised internationally or higher, with 70 per cent rated as internationally excellent or higher, and 45 per cent rated as world leading.
Art history at Sussex is ranked 4th in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2013 and 6th in the UK in The Complete University Guide 2014.
The skills of our faculty represent a unique array across European and American art and culture, with an interest in material culture.
Art history at Sussex has strong links with museums and galleries, both locally and nationally. MA students benefit from the opportunity to study with curators from the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) as part of the V&A/Sussex Exchange Programme.
For MA and research students alike, art history at Sussex provides a friendly and stimulating environment for the exchange of ideas, in which intellectual life and scholarly endeavour thrive.
Art history graduates have gone on to find employment in Higher Education, publishing, the art market, conservation and museum management.
Specialist facilities
Facilities include a well-equipped slide library containing over 100,000 colour transparencies, an extensive database of digital images, access to computing and word-processing training, and a library well stocked with secondary literature in the discipline and with online access to the British Library and other depositories.
You are encouraged, where appropriate, to take advantage of local sites of art-historical interest: extensive collections in the Royal Pavilion and the museums of Brighton & Hove; local country houses such as Petworth and Firle; and the Bloomsbury Collection and the Charleston Trust. A seminar held at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery. Most of our MA modules involve working with museum collections.
Academic activities
A regular research seminar, to which outside speakers are invited, provides a major forum for debate. You are also encouraged to attend seminars in other disciplines such as history, English, philosophy and anthropology.
The Department of Art History is linked to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London through an exchange programme that extends and enhances the research and teaching expertise of both institutions. Each year a member of staff from the museum teaches at Sussex, while a member of the University faculty undertakes research based on the museum collections.
The Department of Art History plays a part in the Centre for Early Modern Studies and the Centre for Byzantine Cultural History. These form foci for a range of lectures, conferences and funded research projects.
Programmes
- PhD in Art History
- MPhil in Art History
We offer research supervision in the history of art and architecture. Special areas of interest include the history of the visual arts and architecture of western Europe in the early modern and modern periods, Byzantine art, Renaissance art, 18th-century art, British and North American art of the 20th century, and contemporary visual culture, especially photography.
Across periods of interest, we share a focus on the object as the starting point of analysis, attention to issues of methodology, historiography and critical theory, and engagement with questions of material and visual culture.
Training in research skills and methodologies is provided.
Recent thesis titles
‘Archi-Texts’ for contemplation in sixth-century Byzantium: the case of the Church of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople
Collectors and collecting in England 1600-1660
Colonial identities and visual culture: representations of the British in India, c1785- 1845
Objects of evidence: colonial encounters through material culture from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands at Brighton Museum, 1858-1949
Strategies for celebration: realising the ideal celebratory city in London and Paris, 1660-1715
The book as symbol in late medieval and early Renaissance painting
The politics of partnership: Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, 1912-1961
The state apartment in the Jacobean country house
The world on a plate: the impact of photography on travel imagery and its dissemination in Britain, 1850-1890
Entry requirements
- MPhil in Art History
-
UK entrance requirements
A Masters degree in art history or a related discipline such as history, architecture, English, archaeology, anthropology or cultural studies, and proof of engagement with art history at an advanced level.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to Overseas qualifications.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
- PhD in Art History
-
UK entrance requirements
A Masters degree in art history or a related discipline such as history, architecture, English, archaeology, anthropology or cultural studies, and proof of engagement with art history at an advanced level.
Overseas entrance requirements
Please refer to Overseas qualifications.
English language requirements
IELTS 6.5, with not less than 6.5 in Writing and 6.0 in the other sections. Internet TOEFL with 88 overall, with at least 20 in Listening, 20 in Reading, 22 in Speaking and 24 in Writing.
For more information, refer to English language requirements.
Visas and immigration
Find out more about Visas and immigration.
For more information about the admissions process at Sussex
For pre-application enquiries:
Student Recruitment Services
T +44 (0)1273 876787
E pg.enquiries@sussex.ac.uk
For post-application enquiries:
Postgraduate Admissions,
University of Sussex,
Sussex House, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9RH, UK
T +44 (0)1273 877773
F +44 (0)1273 678545
E pg.applicants@sussex.ac.uk
Fees and funding
Fees
- MPhil in Art History
-
Home UK/EU students: £3,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,9002
Overseas students: £13,00031 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
- PhD in Art History
-
Home UK/EU students: £3,9001
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,9002
Overseas students: £13,00031 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
2 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
3 The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
To find out about your fee status, living expenses and other costs, visit further financial information.
Funding
The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree.
To find out more about funding and part-time work, visit further financial information.
Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust for Postgraduate Study (2013)
Region: UK
Level: PG (taught), PG (research)
Application deadline: 1 October 2013
The Leverhulme Trade Charities Trust are offering bursaries to Postgraduate students following any postgraduate degree courses in any subject.
Faculty interests
Our research interests cover a broad chronological spread, from Byzantium to the present, and a wide range of subjects, from 20th-century photography to women art critics, Tudor architecture, and art and travel.
Research interests are briefly described below. For more detailed information, visit the Department of Art History.
Dr Benedict Burbridge History and theory of photography, photography and contemporary art. Co-editor of Photoworks magazine.
Dr Meaghan Clarke 19th- and early 20th-century painting, photography and print culture in Europe and North America.
Dr Flora Dennis Visual culture of 15th- and 16th-century Italy; domestic interiors. Editor of Approaching the Renaissance Interior: Sources, Methodologies, Debates (2007).
Professor Maurice Howard Tudor art and architecture; French architecture 1500-1600; the history of ornament. Author of The Building of Elizabethan and Jacobean England (2008).
Professor Liz James Classical and Byzantine art, light and colour, gender. Editor of Art and Text in Byzantine Culture (2007).
Professor David Mellor 20th-century painting, film and photography; cultural and visual representation. Author of No Such Thing as Society (2008).
Dr Michelle O’Malley Renaissance painting, commissioning, production and consumption. Editor of Re-thinking Renaissance Objects: Design, Function and Meaning (2010).
Dr Geoffrey Quilley 18th-century art, travel and empire. Author of Empire to Nation: Art, History, and the Visualization of Maritime Britain, 1768-1829 (2011).
Careers and perspectives
Our graduates have gone on to careers in Higher Education, publishing, the art market, conservation and museum management.
For more information, visit Careers and alumni.
School and contacts
School of History, Art History and Philosophy
The School of History, Art History and Philosophy brings together staff and students from some of the University's most vibrant and successful departments, each of which is a locus of world-leading research and outstanding teaching. Our outlook places a premium on intellectual flexibility and the power of the imagination.
School of History, Art History and Philosophy,
University of Sussex, Falmer,
Brighton BN1 9SH, UK
T +44 (0)1273 876612
E hahp@sussex.ac.uk
Department of Art History
Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions
You’re welcome to attend one of our Discover Postgraduate Study information sessions. These are held in the spring and summer terms and enable you to find out more about postgraduate study and the opportunities Sussex has to offer.
Visit Discover Postgraduate study to book your place.
Other ways to visit Sussex
We run weekly guided campus tours every Wednesday afternoon, year round. Book a place online at Visit us and Open Days.
You are also welcome to visit the University independently without any pre-arrangement.