The Department of Art and Art History at Washington and Lee University prides itself on its use of digital resources in the academic curriculum. Students have access to a collection of over 40,000 locally digitized images on the Madison Digital Image Database (MDID) and over one million digital images on the ARTstor databases.
The Student Arts League was started in the Fall of 2009 when the W&L art and art history professors noticed the lack of creative community for students of the arts. The professors began a discussion with their students about the nature of the W&L art community. After this meeting, the students began their own initiative, Arts League, which was and still is geared towards the promotion of the visual and performance arts as well as art history on W&L’s campus.
Studio Art and Art History faculty urge students to take advantage of study abroad opportunities available through Washington and Lee University and the hundreds of institutions offering quality programs around the world. Studying a digitized image of a Mayan temple, a Buddhist shrine, or a French Gothic Cathedral provides only one kind of educational experience: seeing these monuments with your own eyes offers a very different, and much more valuable one.
The studio art and art history faculty encourage students to undertake supervised summer internships/experience in art galleries, art dealerships, museums, auction houses, artist studios or workshops for art history or studio art credit. Please contact a studio art or art history faculty member for more information.
Each year, students take advantage of opportunities to work with artists and scholars, study abroad, work in artist studios, and travel to professional conferences. The Department of Art and Art History is able to provide limited funding to help support these experiences thanks to the generosity of several endowed funds. Students have received support for internships, workshops, and travel.
Submit your art and art historical writing for consideration at undergraduate journals and literary magazines.