M.A in Fine Arts

The Department of Fine Arts in this University was established about 40 years back with the idea of running two streams of Post-Graduate courses, one for M.A.(History of Art) and the other for M.A. (Fine Arts). Due to unavoidable circumstances, the course in Fine Arts could not be started as yet. However, the department has made significant contribution in the field of the study of art history in a regular academic curriculum. M.A.(History of Art) exists only in a few universities of this country, and fortunately, this department has made a mark among all of them by way of academic contribution in
terms of research and collaborative works.

This department has organised three national level seminars on different aspects of art history with the financial assistance of the U.G.C and I.C.H.R. Unfortunately, due to various circumstances of constraints of proper funding, the proceedings of the seminars could not be published. Of the other important areas of development is the introduction of the use of computers for various academic and research purposes in this department.

Inaugurated in 1968, the Panjab University Museum of Fine Arts which is an integral part of Fine Arts department is the only University Museum in India which can take legitimate pride in having acquired around 1200 works of contemporary art - paintings, sculptures, graphics and drawings etc. over the past thirty years. Even with very limited budget, works of important artists like Jamini Roy, Francis Souza, M.F.Hussain, Satish Gujral, Paritosh Sen, J.Swaminathan, Ram Kumar, J.Sultan Ali, A. Ramachandran, K.G.Subramanyan, Vivan Sundram, Bhupen Khakar, Dhanraj Bhagat, P.V. Jankiram, Pilloo Pochkhanwala, Arpana Caur etc. have been acquired. The museum building, because of its architectural elegance, is one of the most important landmarks in the University Campus.

The teaching in the department is carried out through audio visual materials like slides, film shows, demonstration by artists etc. In the library of the department, there are more than 15,000 slides of which the most important part is that of the slides acquired from the American Committee of South Asian Art (ACSAA), U.S.A. Moreover, every year additions are made to this collection of slides as and when the required funds are available. The library is equipped with most important books required by the students and the faculty members for day-to-day teaching and for immediate references for their research.