Our supportive community offers tools and ecosystems helping students engage historical and contemporary criteria for making art. Innovative faculty help students refine approaches to being collaborators, thought-leaders, educators—and artists. Students have access to the DC area's internationally renowned museums and galleries, in addition to Katzen Arts Center and campus facilities. Flexible degree programs offer courses in sculpture, painting, video, photography, drawing, printmaking, expanded media, and special topics:
BA Studio Art MFA Studio Art BA Photography
DC Museums & Galleries
Beyond AU's Katzen Arts Center and other campus Arts Facilities, Washington, DC, offers an unsurpassed level of world class museums, most of which offer free admission and are within a 20 minute metrorail ride from our studio facilities. From the Phillips Collection (which was America's first museum of Modern Art and the place where American University's Art programs emerged more than a century ago) to the East and West buildings of National Gallery of Art; From the Hirshhorn and the National Museum of African Art to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, these amazing institutions act as a vital component of our students' experience in Washington, DC. The American University Museum at the Katzen Center has become one of the leading museums of contemporary art in the region. Additionally there are many thriving spaces and fellowship opportunities for emerging artists.
- National Gallery of Art
- National Portrait Gallery
- Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden
- National Museum of the American Indian
- National Museum of African Art
- National Museum of African American History and Culture
- Freer & Sackler National Museums of Asian Art
- National Museum of Women in the Arts
- Phillips Collection
- Textile Museum
- Archives of American Art
- Renwick Gallery
- Art Museum of the Americas
- Kreeger Museum
- Glenstone Museum
- Washington Project for the Arts
- Transformer
- Halcyon
- Hamiltonian
News & Events
Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise
Tomorrow the Sun Will Rise, featuring DC–area artists including AU alumna Emily Francisco and faculty members Kyle Hackett, Don Kimes, Danielle Mysliwiec, and Alexandra Silverthorne, runs August 1 to September 20 at the Phillips Collection.
Art All Night at the
Katzen Arts Center September 12, 7-10 p.m.
Kick off Tenleytown's annual Art All Night at American University's Katzen Arts Center! Experience the arts in action. Catch AU Museum new fall exhibits, visit studios of the artists in AU’s Studio Art MFA program, explore GILT by association: Paintings, Sculpture, Prints & Drawings, the Group 93 exhibition on view in the Katzen Rotunda, catch Seeing America in Scale: A Humongous Photography Exhibition, and then, head into Tenleytown for more art at Tenleytown Main Street.