Art History courses online and in London
Looking to build your confidence in discussing and interpreting art? Or are you interested in taking your established knowledge of art in new directions? Then come and join City Lit’s Art History learning community!
Our exceptional range of courses, both introductory and in-depth, are designed for all learning levels. Our programme approaches art history from a variety of perspectives including social and cultural context, art theory and philosophy, curation and collecting, general art appreciation and so much more.
Choosing the right class for you
Our courses are open to all. Our students come from all backgrounds and learning experiences, from the absolute beginner to those refining their knowledge and understanding. We aim to give you the confidence to engage meaningfully with art, whatever level you are working from. Our students use our courses for personal fulfilment as well as professional and educational development. Many of our students go on to advanced degree and certificate programmes and many are able to use their knowledge in art making and gallery work.
Learn from expert tutors
At City Lit we are proud of the expertise of our tutors who are all professional art historians working actively in museums, galleries, research and writing, universities and auction houses. As experts in the field, they are able to provide you with the support and guidance you need to develop your art historical knowledge. As teachers they provide student-focused education, helping students achieve their art historical goals, both the personal and the professional.
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- Friday lates: The body as image and material in 20th century artCourse start date: Fri 9 May 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the representation of body and body-related practices by prominent modern and contemporary artists of the twentieth century.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Friday lates: psychogeography: the art of getting lost
Course start date: Fri 16 May 2025 (and 1 other date)Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Christopher CollierFrom pub crawls to punk rock, via comic books, action painting and Hegelian philosophy; hear the unlikely tale of the Situationists: international artist-revolutionaries who tried to change the world itself into a work of art.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Art and critical theory: feminism and post-colonialismCourse start date: Tue 3 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the role of critical theory within the field of art history, and learn new ways of thinking about art by focusing on feminism, post-colonial theory and the notion of the death of the author. - Art and society in the early modern NetherlandsCourse start date: Wed 4 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Thomas BalfeThis course focuses on Flemish and Dutch (Netherlandish) art of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The course will examine well-known artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Rembrandt and Vermeer, as well as the role of artworks and visual images in the formation of religious, class, gender and national identities, in early science, and in cultures of collecting.Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £110.00 - Art revolutions from 1905-1925Course start date: Wed 4 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Christopher CollierCubism, Futurism and Constructivism are pivotal movements in the history of modern art – encapsulating all the promise and peril of the 20th century’s devastating birth, and even helping rewrite perceptions of space and time.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £63.00 Concession £51.00 - 'The future is now', an introduction to video art Course start date: Thu 5 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the early history of video art, its rise as a medium and its significance as a contemporary art practice. We focus on the influential video works from the 1960s-1980s.Full fee £49.00 Senior fee £49.00 Concession £32.00 - Friday lates: Fluxus - a revolutionary tide in art Course start date: Fri 6 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeDiscover international, interdisciplinary ‘anti-art’ movement Fluxus and explore the use of ‘shock’ tactic in their revolutionary video art and performances.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Tuesday talks: Painted love – homosexuality in Ancient Greek vase paintingCourse start date: Tue 10 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Simone ChisenaDiscover the ways in which homoeroticism found its way onto Ancient Greek vases and how its depiction flourished in the ancient world.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - Friday lates: Text as image from the Renaissance to nowCourse start date: Fri 20 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayWhat happens when word becomes image? From Chinese calligraphy to the prints of Francisco Goya, the graffitied phrases of Jean-Michel Basquiat and truisms of Jenny Holzer, this short course explores how to read text as image. We'll explore how we might read differently in the context of an artwork and how to approach artworks that rely on text as part of their visual composition.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Art and critical theory: rethinking 'nature' Course start date: Wed 25 Jun 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeExplore the role of critical theory within the field of art history, and learn new ways of thinking about art by focusing on how recent authors have been rethinking our understanding of nature.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - Art history taster Course start date: Tue 1 Jul 2025 (and 7 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayCurious about art history? Join us for this taster session where we explore different ways into visual art and its histories from the ancient to the contemporary.Full fee £10.00 Senior fee £10.00 Concession £10.00 - Friday lates: the art of satire - Brueghel and HogarthCourse start date: Fri 26 Sep 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayWhy laugh in a time turmoil? Explore how artists Pieter Brueghel the Elder and William Hogarth reflected on the hypocrisy of their times with scathing satire. Reflect on how studying historic comedy might shift our perspectives on the value of humour, past and present.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £19.00 - Introduction to art history Course start date: Mon 12 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayAre you interested in art and want to get more out of looking at art and exhibitions? Want to know what an art historian does? Develop your interpretative skills by exploring at how art is made and what social and cultural factors construct our understanding of it.Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £249.00 Concession £162.00 - An introduction to art historyCourse start date: Wed 8 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Thomas BalfeArt history is much more than decoding secrets and symbols. It is about critical thinking and empathy, understanding how an artwork reflects an artist’s interpretation of their world, and what it says to you about our world now. This course is designed to build your confidence in understanding visual art of the Western tradition. It is designed for both the absolute beginner and those with some existing art historical knowledge.Full fee £259.00 Senior fee £259.00 Concession £168.00 - Friday lates: the art of the frame Course start date: Fri 10 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Julia MusgraveEvery picture tells a story, but what about the frame around it? Find out how picture frames can tell us more about the artworks they surround.
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