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Majors & Minors

Studio Fine Arts

Major, Minor

Degree: Bachelor of Arts

As a Union College studio fine arts major, you can expect to thrive in an environment in which you gain the confidence and skills needed to create and appreciate art.

Study everything from digital animation to watercolor. At Union, you can choose from many areas of study, including drawing, painting, photography, printmaking and two-dimensional design, digital arts and sculpture.

Work one-on-one with faculty who are professional artists. Union professors are active in their fields, regularly exhibiting their work and garnering awards in prestigious shows.

Exhibit your work. Students enjoy real opportunities to show their work in the Feigenbaum Center for Visual Arts and in the Wikoff Student Gallery at the Nott Memorial.

Take field trips. Join your classmates and professors on excursions to New York City galleries, museums and studios. Discover world-class regional art attractions such as the Clark Art Institute, Mass MOCA and the Storm King Art Center.

Explore different genres, cultures and artistic perspectives. Make prints in a Paris atelier or photos in Vietnam. Pursue your art in other countries through terms and mini-terms abroad.

The Department of Visual Arts also sponsors an exciting roster of visiting artists, including alumni who return to campus to talk about their experiences and career paths. And you will make professional connections through diverse internship placements.

Union graduates work as professional artists in a variety of venues, including museums and galleries, and in careers ranging from communications and teaching to dentistry and medicine.

A sampling of courses

Intermediate Photography

A dual emphasis on gaining experience in advanced black-and-white film, chemistry and printing that encourages a refinement of technique and increased sophistication of aesthetics and ideas; and on color digital photography and the basics of editing software as used by photographers.

Printmaking: Relief

Introductory course in relief printing (linocut, collograph, monotype and woodcut) and the process of printmaking, with outside work required and critiques.

Sculpture 1

An introduction to basic sculptural vocabularies and techniques. Each project is linked to specific materials, methods and approaches to making sculpture, including modeling in clay, making life molds and plaster casts, wood construction and stone carving.

Courses and requirements as listed in the Academic Catalog:

Life after College

What can a degree in studio fine arts do for you? Here is what some of our alumni have been up to:

  • Art instructor, Museum of Fine Arts Boston
  • Creative partner, Sperling Interactive
  • Digital illustration assistant, Sesame Street
  • Director of impact teams, Common Energy
  • Designer and principal, DesignGLXY LLC
  • Educator, Hudson River Museum
  • Event coordinator, Beacon Hill Staffing Group
  • Interactive engineer, TikTok
  • Manager of stewardship and administration, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
  • Museum graphic designer, New York State Museum
  • Researcher, Catalogue Raisonné, Roy Lichtenstein Foundation
  • Staff photographer, New York Daily News
  • Visual effects artist, Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc.
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