The course will help you learn how to engage with art history outside the traditional lecture and textbook format. Instead, our questions and inspiration will come from five face-to-face meetings at various local museums in order to explore art through observation, inquiry, and analysis. We’ll explore how museums foster critical thinking and creativity while you’ll also learn the skills necessary to research and learn more about art and its history. As you develop an understanding about both current and historical art—and the methods in which to approach this learning—you’ll also be determining your own path of research and depth. After each visit, you’ll choose an artist, movement, or piece of work for further exploration, and, with support from me and art research techniques, will eventually create a paper or project that demonstrates your knowledge and shares it with others.

Since this course is heavily based on our face-to-face class visits to museums (such as the DeYoung, SFMOMA, and others), you must be able to commit to the following four dates (10am-3pm each day, including a break for lunch):

• Saturday, September 7
• Saturday September 28
• Saturday October 19
• Saturday November 16

Note that more face-to-face meeting details will be announced once local museum exhibition calendars are published for Fall 2019.

About the Instructor

Barry Beach – Marin Academy
Barry teaches Visual Arts at Marin Academy. He earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He has taught introductory art, two-dimensional and three-dimensional art, AP studio art, and freshman foundations at schools and colleges including Head Royce and the San Francisco Art Institute. He has served as an examiner for International Baccalaureate (IB) Studio Art courses and as a freshman applicant reviewer for UC Berkeley. Before coming to MA, Barry worked as an instructor at Valley International Academy in Campbell, California. He has also served as Director of Admissions at Oregon College of Art and Craft. Outside of MA, Barry does college advising and portfolio preparation for students applying to art and architecture programs. He enjoys creating and exhibiting his artwork. Barry lives in San Rafael with his wife and son, and enjoys cooking, traveling (he’s visited all 50 US states), gardening, hiking, running, and snowboarding.