Graduate Diploma - Art History and Theory

For students who do not have the appropriate undergraduate preparation to embark on one of Essex's MA courses, they may apply for the nine-month Graduate Diploma in Art History and Theory, which can constitute a qualifying year for the relevant MA course. The University of Essex Graduate Diploma consists of eight modules at 3rd-year undergraduate level (up to two of these can be at 2nd-year level). Students must complete the appropriate coursework and examinations, and can also write a project on a topic of their choice if this is agreed with their course director.

At Essex, students have the freedom to study what most interests them. Some of the topics students may choose to explore include the history of photography; modern and contemporary art; curatorial practice and exhibition design; as well as more vernacular forms of visual culture, such as body art and activist placards.

Regardless of the topics students pursue, Essex is committed to research-based teaching, with a particular emphasis on bringing the approaches of art history into contact with other disciplines and discourses. In so doing, they seek to facilitate a critical engagement with artworks and forms of visual culture, both within and beyond the traditional canons of art history.

On campus, ESCALA, one of Europe’s most significant collections of contemporary art from Latin America, will provide an invaluable resource for studying art and curatorial practice first-hand. Essex is 6th among art history departments in the UK for research excellence.

The visual arts and culture industries have become an increasingly significant part of the national and international economy, and art history graduates leave Essex with the skills to take advantage of this growing opportunity.

Graduates from Essex's programmes are ideally prepared for roles in the media, in advertising, in museums and galleries, in education (in schools, universities, and cultural institutions), as conservators, as auctioneers, dealers and antiques specialists, in charities, in publishing, as specialist arts lawyers, as PR agents, in fashion, or to run their own galleries.