Department of Art Education

The Department of Art Education is one of the departments that have a long tradition dating back to 1946, when the university in Olomouc was re-established. Its very broad original conception was linked to the European avant-garde arts between wars. Its primary aim has always been the education of prospective art teachers. At present, the Department offers three-year baccalaureate programme, which can be studied as a single or in a double major, Education-oriented Arts. Graduates of the programme can then apply for masters degree study programmes Art education for upper secondary schools and primary art schools, carried out as a single major, or Art education for upper and lower secondary schools, studied in a double major. Since 2009, the Department also offers a doctoral study programme Art education (theory of art teaching and art making). Since 2002, the Department has been based in the UP Art Centre, a former Jesuit college, a reconstructed baroque building which provides wonderful and unique opportunities of space use for teaching purposes, as well as for exhibitions, expositions and various other artistic events. They frequently take place in Galerie Konvikt, Galerie Schody, and adjunct yards and gardens, or possibly in Galerie Prima outside the Centre’s premises. The faculty’s qualifications are closely connected with their own artistic endeavour and research that is reflected in their publications, lectures, projects and exposition activities, presented both nationally and internationally. Teaching of practical visual art disciplines takes place in well-equipped, specialized rooms and studios. Not only lessons in the spacious studios but also open-air courses are offfered to students of drawing and painting. Next to traditional techniques, the graphical studio offers the opportunity to make use of computer graphics and digital printing. The sculpture studio enables students to work with wood and plaster to create art using a wide range of traditional and new materials in response to various assignments. The applied art sphere has excellent facilities and equipment at its disposal and is aimed at interdisciplinary development in response to material and technological challenges in separate metal-and-jewellery, textile, and ceramics studios. In the graphic design, photography, and multimedia art studios, students can employ a variety of new digital media, in addition to traditional procedures and techniques. The courses in theory of arts and history of arts taught at the Department are carried out in multimedia rooms. There is moreover a reference library available to students. The aim of these courses is to provide students with wide interdisciplinary and critically-oriented scope of knowledge in fine arts and more specifically in teaching methods of art education. Within the Erasmus programme, the Department organizes student exchanges with art universities in Helsinki (Finland), Maribor (Slovenia), Pécs (Hungary), Brescia (Italy), Bánská Bystrica (Slovakia), Valencia (Spain) and occasionally also in Minnesota (USA), whose students are hosted regularly by the Department. The Department organizes international art courses, workshops and lectures both for the students and the public.