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Master of Fine Arts
Studio Art

Earn your MFA in NYC

Study with accomplished artists and scholars within an interdisciplinary setting. This two-year degree provides you with private studios and access to facilities in painting, printmaking, ceramics, photography, digital media, and sculpture.

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Student in studio painting.

Degree Details

Official Degree Title

Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art

Format
Full-time
Credits
60
Start Date
Fall
Application Deadline

Our MFA is dedicated to assisting artists in developing their work through an approach that is intensely introspective while collectively open to the challenges and issues of the larger world. We ask you to consider, both critically and irreverently, your own practices and assumptions, as well as those of the contemporary art world. Designed to be small, the degree provides ample opportunity for individual attention and critique. We are nonrestrictive and encourage you to work with whatever media or formal means best suit your ideas.

Student Learning Outcomes

  • Analyze and examine the process of artistic production through guidance and critique with faculty, visiting artists, curators and critics.

  • Develop critical thinking as it applies to the conceptual and aesthetic foundation of individual studio practice. 

  • Communicate clearly and effectively both verbally and in writing the link between theory and individual artistic practice with specific attention to historical and cultural contexts.

  • Synthesize critique and intellectual reflection into individual artistic production, culminating in a thesis exhibition of contemporary and critical relevance.

During the course of study, you will engage in a team-taught interdisciplinary critique class each semester, as well as one full afternoon each week of individual studio meetings with visiting artists, full-time faculty, and visiting faculty.

Students study with faculty who are acclaimed artists, critics, and writers with diverse interests and disciplines who see teaching as an integral part of an ongoing and influential creative practice. We draw our faculty from the surrounding New York art world, and the deeply engaged relationship between them and our students represents the core of our MFA community.  

MFA studios and facilities are located in the Department of Art and Art Professions' six-story Beaux-Arts Building at 34 Stuyvesant Street in the East Village. Students have the opportunity to exhibit their work during Open Studios as well as in solo installations and group shows at the Art Department’s 80WSE Gallery.

MFAs have private studios and access to facilities for sculpture, printmaking, painting, drawing, ceramics, metalsmithing, sewing, photography, fabrication, and digital printing.

Learn more about NYU studio facilities.

If you have any additional questions about our degree, please feel free to contact mfa.inquiries@nyu.edu.

Events

MFA Exhibitions

Students have the opportunity to exhibit their work during Open Studios as well as in solo installations and group shows at the Art Department’s 80WSE Gallery.

View a full list of department exhibitions and events.

Visiting Artist Lectures

Every year, our MFA students organize a series of Visiting Artist Lectures.

2023–24 artists include Matt Jones, Jack Pierson, Jason Fox, Tschabalala Self, Oscar yi Hou, Keltie Ferris, Kathy Ruttenberg, Virginia Lee Montgomery, Farah Al Qasimi, and Anne Libby.

Take the Next Step

Advance your personal and professional journey – apply to join our community of students.

Apply Now