ART HIS C136DBlack Portrait
Art History · 4 units · Undergraduate upper division (100-199)
Black portraiture is everywhere—gallery walls; Capitol Hill; the cover of Vanity Fair, Time, and Vogue; public and private collections; and the UCLA campus. Examination of the evolution and popularity of the Black portrait across mediums, geographies, and time. Consideration of enduring debates concerning Black figuration while also investigating how artists of African descent have changed the conventions of portraiture and ideas about picturing the self. Consideration of the expectations of portraits, what is Black about the Black portrait, and other questions. Concurrently scheduled with course C236D.
P/NP or letter grading.
When it runs
- Spring 2026
Scheduled, not typical — from UCLA’s Schedule of Classes, which publishes Fall 2025 through Spring 2027 and nothing before it.
Requisites
UCLA lists no requisites for this course.
Requires
Everything that has to come before this course, not just the courses named in the requisite above.
Nothing — this is an entry point.
Unlocks
What this course is a requisite for, and what those courses lead to in turn.
No course in the catalog lists this as a requisite.