mfa program

mission

The primary goal of American University’s MFA program is to facilitate the transition from student to contributing, exhibiting artist and instructor. We believe that an artist’s work is formed through individual choice, knowledge, and experience and that exploration and experimentation in the studio are central to scholarly development. Our mission at AU is rather straightforward: We want to provide students with the tools to engage the historical and contemporary criteria for the making of their work, foster rigorous and unique studio investigation, and develop graduates who are vital, exhibiting artists and art mentors. We promote an environment at the school of genuine enthusiasm, dedication, and continuous, intensive work. Unlike most programs that are heavily invested in narrowly confined approaches, we have gathered a very diverse faculty with expertise in a broad range of approaches and instructions. We believe in the value of multidisciplinary access and do not segregate our graduate students by media so as to provide students with ample flexibility to pursue their interests regardless of previous training. In fact, a number of our graduates come to us as painters but eventually pursue investigations that lead them to video and installation during their time of study. Toward this end, our program is designed to award a single MFA degree in Studio Art with extensive and expert support in the specializations of painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, new media, and printmaking.

program of study

The MFA is a two year program of study with a maximum enrollment of 24 students, within which each student completes a total of 36 credits. The curriculum is centered around a critiquing seminar that is required during every semester of study and is led by a rotation of our faculty. Students are guaranteed diverse and extensive access to and instruction from multiple full-time faculty as part of the seminar offering. The seminar requirement is supplemented with additional offerings in theory, drawing, art history, and studio electives in multiple traditional and new media. Given our standing as a highly respected liberal arts institution, we also make it possible for our students to gain access to study with respected faculty outside of the arts. Students are also served by a prestigious visiting artist program that guarantees repeated individualized access to prominent internationally recognized visiting artists throughout the course of each semester. This visiting artist program is unique because of the degree and continuity of contact that students have to individual visiting artists. Because of the intensity and commitment that is required, and in order to ensure and maintain the benefits and opportunities afforded by the program, part-time study is not available.

exhibition opportunities

We run a highly visible and respected program of exhibition and study. In preparing students for vital exhibition careers, we highlight their program of study with a major capstone exhibition in the well attended Katzen Museum at the end of the first and second years of study. Graduate students also exhibit their work on a continuous basis within the Katzen Rotunda Gallery. Many of our graduate students begin formally exhibiting outside the university during their period of study with us and many move onto prestigious venues within two years of graduation. Recent venues have included the Hirshhorn Museum, the Corcoran Museum of Art, the Arlington Arts Center, Art Miami Basel, Maryland Art Place, and numerous commercial and alternative galleries.

private studio access and facilities

While our program offers a broad range of offerings and challenges that are easily accessible to our students, it is centered around the expectation of individualized study and development. In that regard, each graduate study is provided with their own private studio within the state of the art Katzen Arts Center. Graduates are given 24 hour year-round access to their assigned studio throughout their enrollment within the program. This new 130,000-square foot building located at the main entrance to the university houses all arts programs on campus. The Katzen Arts Center centrally locates all private studios for MFA studio candidates, critique and performance spaces, and state-of-the-art classrooms for painting, sculpting, drawing, printmaking, new media, graphic design, dance, music, and theater, as well as a three-story American University Museum overlooking Ward Circle at the entrance to the university.

financial award, grants, and teaching and professional opportunities

The program provides award packages to its graduate students based on merit. Students who apply and qualify for a merit award through financial aid, have the option for work in installation and collections management within the AU Museum or as a teaching assistant within the undergraduate program. Beyond the training that graduates receive within their offerings, these two opportunities provide our students with the ability to develop invaluable professional experience outside of their studio practice. Upon graduation, the program also, dependent on need, provides highly competitive teaching opportunities within its summer program on a very limited basis as part of a larger awards program that includes financial prizes and purchase awards. Students also have access to the College of Arts and Sciences' Mellon Awards to support research and travel during their second year of study.

district of columbia museums and galleries

The proximity of the university to institutional resources such as the National Gallery, Hirshhorn Museum, Phillips Collection, National Museum of American Art, and other world class museums and collections, including the university's own AU Museum, make interaction with important works of art an integral component of students’ experience. Students can also take advantage of Washington DC’s growing arts community. As noted above, many of our recent MFA grads began their exhibition careers and gained prominence by starting within the thriving DC metropolitan area.

admissions process

Admission to the MFA program is competitive. The process includes screening 20 images of the artist’s work and reviewing a resume of the applicant's art background. Portfolios should include:

20 images on CD (it is recommended although not required that applicants send 15 images of primary medium including painting, sculpture, installation, printmaking, drawing, or new media and 5 images of support medium such as drawing)
Resume
Cover letter
Any video or media work should be included on a CD as a quicktime or on DVD
Portfolios are sent directly to the Department of Art:

Department of Art
American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20016

Applicants must also fill out the standard university application online at the College of Arts and Sciences Admissions website. The application deadline is January 15th. Portfolios must be received by February 7th.

For further information applicants can contact the Department of Art.

Students admitted to the MFA program are required to remit a $250 non-refundable deposit by May 1 in order to retain their place in the program.

 

recent mfa alumni highlights

Dan Steinhilber Exhibitions include Hirshhorn Museum, DC; Corcoran Museum, DC; Arlington Arts Center, VA; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Baltimore Museum of Art; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh; G Fine Art, DC; Numark Gallery, DC; Art Miami Basel. Reviews include Art Forum, Art in America, Washington Post.
Maggie Michael Exhibitions include Corcoran Museum, DC; G Fine Art, DC; Art Miami Base; Scope, NY; Arlington Arts Center, VA; Kimberly Venardos, NY; Flashpoint, DC. Awards include Joan Mitchell. Reviews include Art in America, Washington Post.
Victoria Farr Artists Space, NY; Chashama, NY; Smith Farm Center, DC; Commerce Street Artists Warehouse, TX; Arlington Arts Center, VA; Warehouse Gallery, DC; National Gallery of Art, DC; Cubicle Ten, Baltimore. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship.
Graham Childs Exhibitions include Connor Contemporary Art, DC; Meat Market Gallery, DC; Ellipse Arts Center, VA; Athens Institute for Collaborative Art (collaboration), GA; Warehouse Gallery, DC.
Elise Richman Professor at the University of Puget Sound. Exhibitions include Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle; Adell McMillan Gallery, University of Oregon; The Burke Museum, WA; Shift Gallery, Seattle; Kittredge Gallery, WA; Elizabeth Roberts Gallery, DC; Gallery 4 Culture, Seattle. Reviews include Washington Post, Washington City Paper.
David Waddell Exhibitions include Passerby, Gavin Brown Enterprise, NY; Fashion Week, NY; Fusebox 2008, Austin; Houston Arts Alliance; Lawndale Art Center, Houston; Lloyd Dobler Gallery, Chicago; Arlington Arts Center, VA; Delaware Center for Contemporary Art. Founder/Editor of ARTifice. Teaches at Art League of Houston.
Jonathan Bucci Collection curator, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Williamette University. DC Commission on the Arts Award, Maryland Art Place Residency. Exhibitions include Tilt Gallery and Project Space, Portland; University of Maryland; McClean Project for the Arts, VA; WPA/Corcoran Museum, DC; Elizabeth Roberts Gallery, DC; Maryland Arts Place; MOCA, DC. Reviewed in New American Painting, Washington Post, Washington City Paper and Baltimore City Paper.
Brenda Moore Exhibitions include Art LA; Art Chicago; Linda Warren Gallery, Chicago; Elizabeth Roberts Gallery, DC; LIPA Gallery, Chicago; Signal 66, DC.
Chad Colby Professor at Fort Lewis College, CO. Exhibitions include Denver Art Museum; Durango Art Center, CO; University of Oklahoma; Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts; Amarillo Museum of Art, TX; Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, MA; Western Center for the Arts, CO.
Julia Rommel Moti Hassan Gallery, NY; Connor Contemporary Art, DC; DC Arts Center. Lower Manhattan Cultural Center Residency. Reviewed in Washington City Paper. Visiting artist at New York University and Hollins University.
John Knight Maine Arts Commission Fellow in the Visual Arts. Exhibitions include Caldbeck Gallery, ME; Elan Fine Arts, ME; Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, NY; Cape Museum of Fine Arts, MA; Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, MA; Portland Museum of Art Biennial, ME; Institute of Contemporary Art, ME; WPA/Corcoran Museum of Art, DC.
Benjamin Chiaramonte Associate Professor at Santa Clara University. Exhibitions include Connor Contemporary Art, DC; Prada Gallery, DC; Commerce Street Artists Warehouse, TX; Warehouse Gallery, DC.
Dan Busey Arlington Arts Center, VA; Warehouse Gallery, DC; Athens Institute for Contemporary Art (collaboration), GA
Luisa Greenfield Exhibitions include University of California San Diego; Athenaeum, CA; Arlington Arts Center, VA; Project 4 Gallery, DC; BAC, CO; Computer Music Festival, Germany. Film Arts Foundation Sponsorship, Sanfrancisco; Puffin Foundation Grant; Banff Centre Artist Residency; Fulbright Fellowship in Berlin. Reviewed in Washington Post.

 

mfa blog

artifice: fear and loathing in dc - reviews of art in the District of Columbia and beyond. Cited in the Washington Post and the Washington City Paper.