Overview of Painting
Maryland Institute College of Art
At MICA we believe that painting is at once a traditional pursuit and an open rebellion. The painting department is characterized by its tremendous energy, its reputation, its diversity of offerings, and its high level of dialogue. It is fueled by an excellent faculty, as well as by visiting artists and critics who embody an extraordinary range of opinions and approaches. We share these viewpoints with our students in a studio- and critique-based curriculum that allows for solid training and technical proficiency, as well as independent and personal expression. Liberal arts faculty share their particular perspectives in painting studios. All this results in a highly energized and intense program in which you receive constant feedback and build an extensive network with artists from all over the country. We offer an extensive range of courses, encompassing the traditional, contemporary, and experimental. You explore aesthetic possibilities in abstract and representational areas, the use of traditional and non-traditional materials, and the possibilities and limitations of painting in both two- and three-dimensional directions. If you wish to draw from other disciplines in your work you have the opportunity to do so through our expansive number of studio electives.
Visiting artists and critics inject an interdisciplinary air to painting critiques. Well-respected painters and art critics with a wide range of aesthetic sensibilities and artists working in other disciplines bring different vocabularies and fresh and vital points of view to conversations about your work. The painting program includes extensive independent work. In the junior year, you establish the tone of your own personal expression through research and experimentation.
In the Senior Independent Thesis, you join majors in drawing and general fine arts in an interdisciplinary experience that provides you with the time and focus to develop a significant and fully realized body of work while exploring the intellectual connections between your work in the studio and readings, writings, and discussions in contemporary art and culture. Students who qualify in the junior year may gain access to independent studio spaces in Studio Center, a renovated loft building in Baltimore’s Station North Arts & Entertainment District. The Senior Independent Thesis is outstanding final preparation for survival and success in the art world.
Access to Internationally Renowned Artists
MICA’s reputation as the top undergraduate painting program in the U.S. draws the best painters from around the world as visiting artists who work with seniors in painting, printmaking, drawing, and general fine arts—and opens doors to artists’ studios and galleries in art centers around the world. Recent visiting artists in the fine arts have included:
- Odd Nerdrum, painter
- Eric Fischl, painter
- William Beckman, painter
- Judy Pfaff, painter, printmaker, installation artist
- Alan Feltus, painter
- Terry Winters, painter
- Dan Gustin, painter
- Peter Halley, painter and director of graduate painting/ printmaking at Yale
- Jeff Koons ’76, multimedia artist.
Recent Graduates
MICA graduates are continuously recruited by the nation’s most competitive MFA programs, including Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania, RISD, UCLA, Columbia, Indiana University, and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Our BFA alumni regularly receive prestigious awards for graduate study, including Fulbright grants for international study (MICA was named in 2006 as one of the top four producers of Fulbrights among specialty schools in the U.S.), Jack Kent Cook Foundation Graduate Scholarships, Jacob K. Javits Fellowships, Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation Fellowships for New Americans. In addition, MICA graduates are honored with high-profile grants for young artists, including Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Awards, and Freeman-Asia Awards; have been accepted into some of the nation’s top artists’ residencies and fellowships; and have been featured in major exhibitions nationwide, including Exit Art NYC, Forum Gallery in New York and Los Angeles, and Art Basel in Miami.
Successful young painting majors build on a tradition of high-profile success on the contemporary art scene that dates back to painting alumni Morris Louis ’32, internationally noted color field painter now being featured in a major retrospective with stops at the High Museum in Atlanta and the Hirshhorn in Washington, and Jeff Koons ’76.
Faculty Chair in Painting
MICA’s second endowed faculty chair is the Genevieve McMillan/Reba Stewart Chair in Painting, established to honor the memory of the late Reba Stewart, painter and longtime faculty member at MICA, by bringing to campus a series of distinguished visiting artists of charisma and accomplishment to inspire and engage MICA students.