Picture of students in The Courtauld Gallery


The Courtauld Graduate Diploma is offered on a full-time basis only.  Full time study is for one year. The course is structured to include four elements:

  • One Period Course, which focuses on a specific period in Western art

  • One Topic Course, focusing on the study of objects

  • One Texts and Contexts Course, designed to explore current debates in art-historical scholarship and to examine the methods and approaches of key art historians in the past

  • The Foundation Lecture Course
    The core element of the programme, the Foundation Lecture Course, consists of a series of lectures that provide a grounding in the history of art from Antiquity to the present day. The lectures also introduce the student to the variety of approaches and methods used in the discipline of the history of art with an opportunity to explore these further in the other elements of the programme.


The range of courses offered in these areas have recently included:


Period Courses

  •  Art in France 1900-1939: Nationhood & Tradition  
    Caroline Levitt
  •  Place & Space in British Modernism
    Charlotte de Mille


Texts and Contexts Courses

  •  Approaches to the Architecture of Michelangelo
    Dr Georgia Clarke
  •  The Metaphysics of Art History: German Art History from Kant to Gombrich
    Professor Paul Crossley


Topic Courses