PAINTING + DRAWING
Mission Statement: To provide the intellectual, creative, and physical environment which best fosters excellence in painting and drawing for students and faculty.

Our program's faculty are all practicing artists who offer instruction in painting and drawing from beginning through graduate levels. Our students learn directly under the guidance of professors. Our eight faculty, in their own research, reflect the diversity and plurality of contemporary drawing and painting, while being grounded in traditional and historical methods and precepts.

A firm basis in the fundamentals of drawing is held as a first step to successful work in our field. A comprehensive education in drawing and painting stresses both breadth and depth. An awareness of the breadth of what has been done in the past and what is being done in the present encourages students to relate their own practice to both history and the contemporary context. A concentrated involvement in studio practice fosters the evolution of an individual vision.

A program such as ours, situated in a major university, benefits from the influence of students and colleagues from a wide range of disciplines. Our program majors and graduate students profit by the experience of a rigorous conservatory education with the breadth of exposure that a major university affords.