MFA Fine Arts and MFA Photography Open Studios

MFA Fine Arts and MFA Photography open studios on Saturday, November 9, 2019 from 1–6pm. Register here for the Fine Arts graduate information session, 10–11:30am.

Reception at 6pm for an exhibition of graduate works selected by Will Hutnick, MFA ‘11.

Organized by Pratt Artists League and the Fine Arts Department.

About Pratt Institute’s MFA Program in Fine Arts
Pratt Institute’s MFA program provides advanced education for artists supported by a distinguished faculty, exceptional facilities, and a supportive community of peers. Driven by exploration and enriched by the abundance and inspiration of New York City, Pratt’s critically engaged faculty respond to each student’s individual practice, fostering their development within the diverse cultures and myriad practices of contemporary art-making.  Pratt’s MFA Fine Arts degree supports interdisciplinary practice. Faculty and students build close relationships through structured studio visits, seminars, and informal conversations. These relationships create a vital community and supportive network that endures long after graduation.

The curriculum is both rigorous and flexible, offering wide latitude for exploration while fostering critical perspectives and a deeper understanding of the histories, issues, cultural and transdisciplinary contexts that inform art practices today. With the art world on our doorstep, there are many opportunities to meet influential contemporary curators, critics and cultural producers. Professional practice education is integrated throughout the program, providing students the tools they need to make their way as professional artists and cultural innovators after graduation. Faculty members in the Fine Arts program are active professional artists distinguished by their numerous national and international exhibitions and appearance in major art publications. Many have also received significant awards from such organizations as the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Joan Mitchell Foundation, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Creative Capital, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. 

Graduate Fine Arts facilities are outstanding. Students have individual studios located in the Pfizer Building, a renovated industrial building that also houses our fabrication shops, temporary exhibition spaces, seminar rooms, and a student lounge. Campus facilities include a fully equipped woodshop, metal shop, print shop, ceramics studios, darkrooms, and a digital output lab with high-resolution scanners and printers, as well as dedicated campus galleries. There are many opportunities to show work in a variety of traditional and non-traditional spaces and students are encouraged to curate self-initiated exhibitions. In both fall and spring, MFA students host a public open studio event. In the spring second-year students mount individual thesis capstone exhibitions and have the option of showing their work in a curated group show at Pratt Manhattan Gallery.

In addition to a regular schedule of studio visits by faculty members, the department’s Visiting Artists Lecture Series (VALS) brings internationally renowned artists to campus to give public lectures and conduct individual studio visits with graduate students. Pratt Artists League (PAL, the Fine Arts graduate student club) invites artists, curators, and critics for studio visits, and organizes open studios as well as other student-generated programming and exhibitions.