Art History

Art History at Bowdoin offers courses that examine works of art in their historical, social, religious, and philosophical contexts. Students study not only the formal aesthetic values of these works, but also the ways in which they reflect the cultures and the personalities that produced them.

Student Research

Bowdoin Museum of Art

Museum Exhibition Focuses on Role of Language in Art
The Bowdoin College Museum of Art's Turn of Phrase: Language and Translation in Global Contemporary Art scrutinizes the critical and creative functions of language from the 1980s to the present.
Museum of Art’s “Antiquity and America” and How Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Americans of All Races, Classes, and Genders Looked to the Ancient Mediterranean for Inspiration
In an article for The Conversation, Sean Burrus, former Andrew W. Mellow Post-Doctoral Curatorial Fellow at the Museum of Art (2018–2022) and curator of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art exhibition Antiquity and America, expands on the intention behind the show and shares insights from his field of expertise in ancient Mediterranean art and culture.
A Private Collection Burnishes the Bowdoin Museum of Art
Since the Bowdoin College Museum of Art received 100 extraordinary objects from the Wyvern Collection as a long-term loan, the artworks have become "an integral part of the day-to-day life of the Museum," staff say.