The American University Art Department provides students with the tools to ambitiously engage historical and contemporary criteria for making art. Come work with our professional, dedicated, and innovative faculty in a city where you will have access to internationally renowned museums and galleries. The Katzen Arts Center provides students with fully equipped, state of the art facilities where students can thrive in flexible graduate and undergraduate programs that offer sculpture, painting, video, digital photography, drawing, printmaking, expanded media and special topics courses.

MFA students exhibit their work annually in the American University Museum, travel with faculty to New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore and may choose to spend a summer in our MFA Berlin program. Our visiting artist series brings high profile artists from around the country to the Katzen Art Center and American University Museum for public lectures, exhibitions and graduate studio visits. 

For more information on our programs:

• BA Studio Art
• Studio Art Minor
• BA Photography
• MFA Program 
• MFA Studio Berlin, an interdisciplinary, MFA-level summer program in Berlin

MFA Alumni Features

• Ambre Kelly - Artist and Co-Founder of Spring Break Art Fair
• Julia Rommel - Artist represented by Bureau NYC and Overduin & Co LA
• Allison Hall - Artist represented by Galerie Gisela Clement, Germany 
• Cara Ober - Artist and Founder of B'More Art 
• Dan Steinhilber - Solo Museum Exhibition at the Hirschhorn Museum, DC

Washington DC Museums & Galleries

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 and Sculpture Garden
• National Museum of the American Indian
• National Museum of African Art
• National Museum of African American History and Culture
• The Freer and Sackler National Museums of Asian Art
• National Museum of Women in the Arts
• National Museum of the American Indian
• The Phillips Collection
• Textile Museum
• Archives of American Art
• The Renwick Gallery
• Art Museum of the Americas
• Kreeger Museum
• Glenstone Museum 
• Washington Project for the Arts
• Transformer
• Halcyon
• Hamiltonian
• STABLE