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