The Hartford Art School is both geographically and culturally a focal point on the University of Hartford campus. Located near the bridge across the Park River, linking the dormitory area with the main campus, the buildings of the art school are easily accessible to students. The varied activities of the school—exhibitions, films, lectures, and receptions—provide stimulating enrichment to University life, and are enthusiastically attended by students of the University as well as art school students.
Carol Joseloff Taub Hall is the main art building and houses administrative offices, a student gallery and studio facilities for drawing, painting, printmaking, and foundation studies.
The Renée Samuels Center houses state-of-the-art digital labs, studios, and darkrooms for media arts and photography.
The Stanley Sculpture Building is located behind Taub Hall and houses a modern sculpture facility with equipment and tools for working in clay, stone, wood, metal, and other sculptural materials.
Directly adjacent to the Stanley Sculpture Building, the Krieble Ceramics Center houses studios for ceramics, including a kiln room with gas-fired, wood-fired, and electric kilns; a clay and glaze laboratory; and studios for pottery and sculptural ceramics. The building also houses a large studio for the three-dimensional studies component of the first-year program.
Connecting the Sculpture Building and Ceramics Building is the Sculpture Fabrication Workshop, providing space for a well-equipped and -staffed woodworking studio.
Studio art facilities in the Harry Jack Gray Center house the Illustration, and Visual Communication Design departments of the Hartford Art School, and provide both classroom and advanced work stations for upper-level students in visual communication design and illustration. The Anne Bunce Cheney Art Library collection is housed in the Mortensen Library and is within a short distance of all studio facilities. The Hartford Art School Garret, a short distance from Taub Hall, provides semiprivate studio space for undergraduate students.
A recently constructed facility annexed to the Stanley Sculpture Building houses an expanded foundry for casting nonferrous metals and a fully equipped workshop for glass blowing and hot and cold glass fabrication.
Founded in 1877, the Hartford Art School is one of the oldest art schools in America. Its studio programs are accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. The Hartford Art School awards the Bachelor of Fine Arts with studio majors and the Master of Fine Arts with low-residency concentrations in illustration and photography.
Master of Fine Arts Degree
Objective
The mission of the Master of Fine Arts program is to provide the advanced student of art an extended period of concentrated study under the tutelage of faculty mentors. The broad objective of the program is to assist graduate students in the pursuit of personal vision, technical mastery of their field, and the development of a professional work ethic as a precursor to careers as practicing professional artists or as teachers of art at all levels of instruction, including the college level.
Through a series of studio tutorials, graduate seminars, and advanced courses in art history, the graduate student is challenged both artistically and intellectually.
General Requirements for Admission
Applicants to the Master of Fine Arts program are expected to have earned the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from an accredited institution of higher learning. Students who hold a baccalaureate degree other than the Bachelor of Fine Arts may be admitted, provided the quality of their studio work is equivalent to that of individuals who have had the B.F.A. preparation.
Generally, applicants are admitted to the program if their art work and capacity for self-motivated study is such as to indicate the likelihood of success at the graduate level.
Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair for the Visual Arts
The Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair for the Visual Arts was established by an endowment in 1988. This endowment provides funds, on an annual basis, for the appointment of highly distinguished artist-teachers to the faculty of the Hartford Art School for a specified period of time. The occupants of the Koopman Chair join the teaching faculty and conduct courses and other special activities for all levels of students at the school. Occupants of the Richard Koopman Chair have included the following distinguished artists:
| George McNeil, 1989–90 |
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| Alfred Leslie, 1990–91 |
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| John Coplans, Sandy Skoglund, 1991–92 |
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| Michael Singer, Judy Pfaff, 1992–93 |
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| Tony Hepburn, Michael Lucero, 1993–94 |
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| Richard Ziemann, Warrington Colescott, Frances Myers, 1994–95 |
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| Etienne Dellesert, Gary Kelley, 1995–96 |
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| Francesco Torres, Joan Braderman, Su Friedrich, Annette Lemieux, Cornelia Parker, 1996–97 |
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| Jan Baker, Paul Khera, Marie Beddoes, Nancy Skolos, Tom Wedell, Bethany Johns, 1997–98 |
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| Bill Jensen, 1998–99 |
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| Merry Alpern, Gregory Gillespie, Andy Grundberg, 1999–2000 |
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| Lowry Burgess, Robert Stackhouse, 2000–01 |
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| Linda Christianson, Doug Jeck, 2001–02 |
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| Murray Tinkelman, Dave DeVries, Brian Ajhar, 2002–03 |
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| Jane Goldman, 2004 |
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| Timothy Druckrey, George Fifield, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Julia Scher, 2004–05 |
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| Akiko Busch, Robert L. Peters, Mark Randall, 2005–06 |
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| Joyce Kosloff, 2007 |
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| Jerry Spagnoli, 2008–09 |
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| Ernesto Pujol, 2009–10 |
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