
Art and art history students at Carthage have many opportunities for enriched study, from J-Term trips around the world, to gallery exhibits closer to home.
J-Term is a month-long period of study in January in which all academic departments at Carthage offer innovative courses on campus, as well as study tours in other countries. The Art Department offers interesting courses for majors and non-majors every J-Term. Recent on-campus courses include Ceramic Wheel Throwing, which introduced students to ceramic techniques; and Paper Pleasures: Aesthetics & Techniques of Handmade Paper, in which students experienced paper-making, design and printmaking.
From the beautiful campus to the nearby world-renowned art museums, Carthage offers art students many resources to explore their vision, perfect their skills, and learn from the masters.
Not all J-Term courses are offered on campus. Students also have the opportunity to study art abroad, wandering the Louvre in Paris or the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain. In 2009, students traveled to Greece for the course Greece: Theatre, Art and Architecture. Students attended plays, visited historic sites, and participated in workshops of mask-making, costume design and Greek folk dancing.
Student artists at Carthage have many opportunities to show their work. Carthage has a student art gallery, Gallery B, and a student sculpture garden. The renowned H.F. Johnson Gallery of Art also houses student exhibits during the year, including the annual Senior Art Exhibit in which all studio majors can participate.
Carthage offers a number of competitive scholarships to prospective art majors, and smaller scholarships to art minors. These scholarships are awarded based upon a cumulative review of a candidate’s application for admission to Carthage, in addition to a review of the applicant’s Studio Art Portfolio by members of the art faculty. Faculty members conduct portfolio reviews in February. For more information, prospective students can click here or contact Karen Peters, Administrative Assistant to the Division of Fine Arts, at kpeters@carthage.edu.
"It does not matter how much talent you have in art, everyone is an artist. As long as you put effort and time into a piece, the message will come out in the end."
— Katherine Ramirez, '11, Darien, Ill.
Hear what students have to say about studying art and art history at Carthage.

Student Work. See photographs taken by Carthage students during a J-Term trip to Tucson, Ariz.