Bryn Mawr's Department of History of Art offers M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in all areas of western art history from late antiquity through the present, including film. It is one of three independent departments that comprise the Graduate Group, along with Archaeology and Classics.

Bryn Mawr has a distinguished tradition in the study of the visual arts. The College has been cited as one of a few influential institutions that helped establish art history's place in the American academy. With 34 graduate students in the 2005-2006 academic year, History of Art is the one of the largest graduate programs at Bryn Mawr.

The program of study is flexible and can be tailored to the goals and interests of individual students. Faculty offer seminars on topics related to their current research, including medieval Rome and the afterlife of classical culture; Italian Renaissance art and historiography; seventeenth-century Spain and its colonies; German and Netherlandish art; nineteenth- and twentieth-century painting; contemporary art; and film and film theory. Courses are also offered in postmodern critical theory, especially gender theory, psychoanalytic theory, and reception.

Among the 34 students enrolled in History of Art in 2005-2006, there are 29 women and five men. Twenty-six (76%) receive some form of financial aid, ranging from fellowships to partial tuition awards. Nineteen students have progressed to Ph.D. candidacy; two are candidates for the M.A.; and the remainder are in course work.

Graduates of the program in History of Art have made major contributions to the discipline and continue on to successful careers in colleges and universities, museums, galleries and foundations around the world. Nearly 70% of Ph.D. graduates since 1995 hold academic positions, including 42% with tenure-track teaching appointments in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Taiwan; 8% are museum curators; and others are employed in non-profit organizations and in business. Academic appointments include Wheaton College, Carleton University, Cheng Kung National University, Oxford Brookes University, Rice University, Temple University, and Texas A & M University; museum appointments include the Dallas Museum of Art, the Fogg Art Museum, and the Portland (Maine) Museum of Art.

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Graduate School of Arts and Sciences