Home | Department of the History of Art and Architecture

Welcome to the Department of the History of Art and Architecture

How do images, objects, museums, and monuments shape our history and contemporary experience? Learn the history and dynamics of art: how to look and how to write critically about visual and material culture, past and present.

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Students, visitors and staff attend the opening reception at the Tufts University Art Gallery.

Visual Resources Collection

The Visual Resources Collection (VRC) located in the Fine Arts House supports the pedagogical needs of our faculty, students, and staff.

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Biblical Stories, South Facade, Church of Aghtamar, 915 CE

Department Announcements

Join us on March 27, 2026, for Tufts Art History Grad Symposium: Resistance from Within: Art as Covert Defiance with Keynote speaker: Dr. Diana Martinez

In 1984, Lucy Lippard asked if the Trojan Horse was the first work of activist art. Written during the first Reagan administration, Lippard’s famous essay posits activist art as working both “within and beyond the beleaguered fortress that is high culture or the ‘art world.’” (Lippard, 1984, p. 1) This symposium seeks to explore how art throughout history has worked as a Trojan Horse, quietly maneuvering across tangible and figurative boundaries, defying the restrictions of authoritative institutions, and subverting societally imposed conventions and expectations.

Schedule of Events

Light breakfast and lunch provided

Reserve a spot - eventbrite link