Art History

Some Art History majors and minors go on to do graduate work in Art History, but many of them have gone on to law school, business school, and even medical school. Students with an interest in a museum career have earned internships at major American museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia Museum of Art, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Fogg Museum of Art at Harvard University, Cambridge, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Lauren Johnson '07
Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery
Responsibilities: Assisting in every aspect of the deputy director and chief curator's work, from making acquisitions to planning and preparing exhibitions
Path to Position: Began an internship at the National Portrait Gallery in the Department of Prints and Drawings and then, two weeks later, was put on the regular payroll and placed into current position
How Bowdoin Helped: "Bowdoin helped me discover my passions: art history and American history. The professors in the art history department are outstanding! They know the subject matter. They're always expecting more of their students, but they’re always very supportive."
Advice: "Don't be nervous and don’t spend a lot of time worrying about what will happen after you graduate. Talk to your professors. Talk to the people in Bowdoin Career Planning. Things will work out just fine, and you’ll be ready
to hit the ground running.".

Jeff Hom '04
Student, Harvard Medical School
Responsibilities: Learning about the human body—how it works, why it goes wrong; making the transition from thinking as a student to thinking as a physician
Path to Position: Spent several months as a volunteer in Lesotho, Africa, developing databases on the well-being of children--their healthcare, their education; then spent a year coordinating volunteers at the St. Anthony Foundation in San Francisco
How Bowdoin Helped: "Bowdoin provided a strong academic foundation, both in the arts and the sciences. I learned what else is out there by interacting with classmates who were doing all kinds of wonderful things. And I learned how to be a student, open to new ideas."
Advice: "Embrace the liberal arts. Take risks--put yourself out there and into classes that intrigue and excite you. Bowdoin is behind you in such an endeavor, and such exploration will help you define who you are."

Emma Raynes '04
Lived in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, Southern India. While living in Southern India, She posted to a blog, a new group of five images every week, during the week in which the images are made. This project ran from August through December 2004. ( visit her blog » )

halley k harrisburg '90
has worked in the art profession for twenty years. Beginning her career at Josh Baer Gallery, she teamed in 1992 with Michael Rosenfeld of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, where she has organized significant exhibitions that have explored the depth and breadth of twentieth-century American art.  more »

David Little '85
Is Curator of Photographs Minneapolis Institute of Arts and a member of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art Advisory Council, has been garnering positive reviews for the MIA exhibition, The Sports Show, which, perhaps counterintuitively, offers “more social commentary than celebration,” as it looks at how photography, film and new media have transformed age-old leisure activities into the pop culture phenomena of sports in our day.  The exhibition catalogue, Sports Show: Athletics as Image and Spectacle, is available at The Bowdoin Store and The Museum Shop. He was previously Director of adult and academic education programs at The Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

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Have more questions about what you can do with a Bowdoin education? Come to the Career Planning Center. First floor, Moulton Union