History of Art

About this programme

Build essential study skills with an integrated foundation year. Gain academic confidence, improve critical thinking, and strengthen subject knowledge for your degree journey. If you haven’t studied art history, we’ll get you up to speed. If you have, we’ll introduce you to new topics. You’ll develop your logical and critical thinking skills, learn advanced research techniques, and become a great communicator. The city has renowned museums, galleries, and auction houses to not only visit, but volunteer or work in to gain experience of the sector. History of Art is ranked 8th in the Guardian History of Art subject league ranking 2025. Our university-wide language programme is available to full-time undergraduate and postgraduate students on many of our courses, and can be taken as a credit on some courses. You may be able to go on a European or international study exchange while you are at Oxford Brookes. Although we will help as much as we can with your plans, ultimately you are responsible for organising and funding this study abroad. In your foundation year , you will study a Foundation in Humanities, building confidence and essential academic skills. In the first year of your degree you'll learn key theories and history. If you’ve studied art history before, we’ll introduce you to new concepts and advanced ideas. If you haven’t, we’ll make sure you’re comfortable with the basics. You'll also study museums and curating in your second year, and this will be a theme throughout the course as we invite curators in to talk about their work. By the end, you’ll have pra