2021 marks the 50th anniversary of the department of Art History at our University. In 1970, the University of Aberdeen appointed David G. Irwin to a lectureship in “Fine Art”. The following year, Aberdeen offered for the first time an ‘ordinary’ (first year) course in History of Art – thus inaugurating the subject at the University. Over the coming years, Irwin established a fully-fledged History of Art Department, and degree-level teaching in this subject, with the first students graduating with a degree in the subject in 1975/6.
We are celebrating and documenting this anniversary with a webpage on the history of the Department, from its foundation until today.
50 years of Art History at Aberdeen
The anniversary webpage was written and researched by Dr Hans C. Hönes, with assistance by Nicole Cogan Maclellan (3rd year Art History), who worked on this project as a DHPA-funded research intern.