Art, Ideas & Theory
Art History Courses Online & In London
Looking to advance your art historical knowledge into academic practice? Or, maybe you would like to explore art through broader concepts like feminism or aesthetics? Art theory allows us to think about art thematically, across time and place. Join us for one of our classes online, in the classroom or in galleries, out and about in London.
Online, classroom-based and gallery-based art history courses
Many of our courses are also offered online, giving you the freedom to study from anywhere you need to be. We also offer our classes in-person at our Central London location and at many galleries and museums in and around London. Use the Location filters on this page to choose your preferred delivery method. See our guide to online learning for more information about our live online courses.
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.
- Art and critical theory: feminism and post-colonialism
Course start date: Thu 18 Jun 2026Location 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.Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £149.00 Concession £97.00 - Friday Lates: Art beyond the human - spirits, ecologies, and A.I. Course start date: Fri 26 Jun 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Christopher CollierTo some, art is central to what makes us human, but artists have long engaged more-than-human agencies—spiritual, ecological, now digital. Surrealism appropriated spiritualist and indigenous traditions; Land Art made ecosystems co-authors. Today, as some talk of an ‘Anthropocene’, many artists turn their attention elsewhere. Did ancient hominids make art? Can birds, or even fish? And what about AI? Decentering the Human reshapes what art is—but are we ready?
Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Lunchtime Lecture: Art & colonialism, from England's green & pleasant lands to Paradise Lost Course start date: Wed 23 Sep 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Leslie PrimoThe voyages of William Wallis and those that followed brought back images and people that fascinated Europeans. This lecture explores the art and lives impacted by the age of British colonisation. From Captain Cook to Dido Belle, we think about how colonial ideas like ‘the noble savage’, paradise and the myth of civilisation were reinforced in painted images.
Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £19.00 - Friday lates: Sex and the city, art in 1920s Berlin Course start date: Fri 25 Sep 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayIn the wake of war, many people in Weimar Republic Berlin revelled in what Sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld called the 'varieties of love'. This course explores the art of the era: the modern beauties of 1920s Berlin and how they rebelled against the ugliness of oppression.
Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £23.00 Concession £19.00 - Animals in art: from medieval to today Course start date: Wed 30 Sep 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Irina ChkhaidzeThis course focuses on historical shifts in the depiction of animals from the late medieval period to the present, and on the contemporary representations of human-animal relations.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £139.00 Concession £139.00 - Friday lates: psychogeography: the art of getting lost Course start date: Fri 2 Oct 2026
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 £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £19.00 - Ways into advanced art history: style and form Course start date: Tue 13 Oct 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Sarah JaffrayDevelop a greater understanding of art history and how to analyse the cultural meaning of an artwork by going in-depth with the ideas of prominent art historians. This course explores the complex links between visual form (or style) and historical context and is meant to train you for art historical level interpretation. Please note: this course is academically focussed.
Full fee £169.00 Senior fee £169.00 Concession £110.00 - Ancient China/modern fantasies Course start date: Tue 3 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Meitao QuExplore the material culture of imperial China and its influence on modern and contemporary visual cultures.
Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £23.00 Concession £19.00 - Friday lates: Art and alchemy – from the ancient to today Course start date: Fri 13 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Christopher CollierDelve into a magical world of hidden secrets and bizarre symbolism as we distil the heady mix that is art and alchemy; from early manuscripts and renaissance paintings, to the surrealists and contemporary art.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £19.00 - Van Eyck and the Pre-Raphaelites Course start date: Tue 24 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Emma Rose BarberExplore the work of Van Eyck in relation to Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelites more generally; consider how this 15th century painter influenced artists some 300 years later.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £23.00 Concession £19.00 - Friday lates: Virtue and vice: representing gender in early modern ItalyCourse start date: Fri 27 Nov 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Elisa StafferiniWhy are virtues such as Justice, Liberty, Charity and Fortitude almost always depicted as women? This session explores the history of personified virtues in Italian art, examining how moral ideals were visualised as female figures and what these images reveal about gender, symbolism and artistic tradition.
Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £29.00 Concession £19.00 - Adoring the Christ Child in art: images of the very generous Magi Course start date: Thu 3 Dec 2026
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Emma Rose BarberThe images of the Adoration of the Magi will be taken from medieval illuminated manuscripts, as well as panel paintings done for churches and chapels and fresco cycles. Artists covered include Italian artists such as Duccio, Giotto, Botticelli, Fra Filippo Lippi, Fra Angelico, Gentile da Fabriano, and northern Renaissance artists including Gossaert and Breughel.Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £23.00 Concession £19.00
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