Internships offer students opportunities to enrich their academic experience by integrating classroom study with experiential learning in the art world, which can become a steppingstone to a future career. Our students have worked in museums, art galleries, libraries, cultural institutions, artist’s studios, conservation labs, etc., both locally and around the world, gaining hands-on experience with artworks, and working with directly with artists, curators, university professors, museum educators, gallery owners, and other art world professionals. They have been involved in activities such as biographical and provenance research, exhibition design, multimedia production, data analysis, fundraising, and grant writing. Through their experiences, students have been able to explore potential career avenues, make professional connections, and gain saleable skills in addition to learning more art and artworks, and helping make more visible the great diversity of artistic expression.

While most internships are unpaid, undergraduates are eligible for an internship stipend from the Department of Art History, made possible through the Steckler Family Initiative in Art History (SFIAH).

Please check out the current Art History internship opportunities.

Institutions that have hosted UCI Art History students as interns include:

  • UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa
  • The Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach
  • The Bowers Museum, Santa Ana
  • Orange County Parks, Santa Ana
  • The Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach
  • Museum of the African Diaspora, Los Angeles
  • The Broad, Los Angeles
  • The Huntington Library and Gardens, Pasadena
  • Fine Arts Conservation Laboratories, Santa Barbara
  • The De Young Museum, San Francisco
  • The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • The Louvre, Paris