Internships

Bartels Art Museum Scholar Summer Internships

Through the generosity of Nancy Horton Bartels and her late husband, Henry E. Bartels, the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) offers summer internships to Yale undergraduates and to undergraduates from New Haven County now attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU). Projects are intended to introduce students to museum operations and best practices in administrative, conservation, curatorial, education, and research departments. The internships are named in honor of former YCBA directors. Internships run for eight weeks from June 17 to August 9, 2024. The stipend for Bartels Summer Internships is $5,000. This program provides opportunities for both Yale students and students from New Haven to become familiar with the various career opportunities at one of the museums in New Haven. This program aligns with Yale’s commitment to create a stronger and more inclusive community through partnerships with HBCUs. 

About the YCBA

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) is the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. The YCBA's collections of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper (which include archives, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, prints, and rare books) present the story of British art and culture, and its global contexts, from the fifteenth century to today. An extensive reference library is available to the staff and public to support research on British art, the collections, and their histories. The YCBA's exhibition of the permanent collection provides an overview of British art, culture, and history over six centuries. It is the subject of research by graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral associates, and visiting scholars. Special exhibitions also take place on a rotating basis.

The Bartels Art Museum Scholar Summer Intern will work directly with staff in the department hosting their internship. Projects are designed to give the intern a full view of museum careers and opportunities while providing transferable skills such as administration, public programming, research, and visitor engagement.

Eligibility

Any current HBCU undergraduate who graduated from high school in New Haven County and has finished their first year is eligible to apply. Any current Yale undergraduate who has finished their first year is eligible to apply. Applicants do not need to be art history majors. Employment is contingent upon successful completion of background and credit check.

To be considered, HBCU undergraduates must have lived in and graduated from a high school in one of the following towns or cities: Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Branford, Cheshire, Derby, East Haven, Guilford, Hamden, Madison, Meriden, Middlebury, Milford, Naugatuck, New Haven, North Branford, North Haven, Northford, Orange, Oxford, Prospect, Seymour, Southbury, Wallingford, Waterbury, West Haven, Wolcott, or Woodbridge.

Required Skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Excellent computer skills. Proficiency in MS Office programs, particularly Word and Excel, is preferred. 
• High level of discretion and confidentiality in handling museum information.

To Apply

The application is now closed. Please check back here next year. 

Summer 2024 Bartels Internships 

Archives

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) Archives is the official repository for all historical documentation of the museum, recording its development from its inception in the mid-1960s to the present. The Chief Archivist seeks an intern with a background in art history, architecture, or the humanities to complete an independent archives-based project working with the Paul Mellon Archive. The intern will survey, research, and remediate description of the collection. The internship provides a significant opportunity for a focused project and is ideal for students interested in the history of British art, museum studies, the history of cultural institutions, and archival research. More information on Paul Mellon and the YCBA can be found at https://britishart.yale.edu/stories/paul-mellon-founder. 

Reference Library and Photo Archives

The YCBA Reference Library and Photo Archive is seeking a dedicated student to conduct art historical research and database formation to assist in the migration of the Library’s Photo Archive images and data to the museum’s collections management system (TMS). The migration will allow the Photo Archives to be searched and retrieved in the digital environments of the online Collection Search; in LUX, Yale’s collections discovery tool; and ultimately in the PHAROS database of international photo archives collections. The tasks associated with the migration include researching Photo Archive–related artists (including life dates, life roles, places of significance, and knighthoods); reconciling artists’ names across the art and library collections (using authorities such as Library of Congress Name Authority Files, Union List of Artists Names, and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography); reconciling Photo Archive subject headings with headings used across art and library collections (using authorities such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings and Art and Architecture Thesaurus); and recording information in TMS. The Bartels Fellow will be based in the Reference Library, working closely with its staff and the staff of the Collections Information Access Department. The position is open to Yale students with a keen interest in art history, libraries, museums, and/or digitization and database creation.

Prints and Drawings

The Yale Center for British Art’s Prints and Drawings summer internship provides a student with a unique experience to learn about curatorial practice and the day‐to‐day operations of a curatorial team. The intern has opportunities to learn about and contribute to ongoing projects in the Prints and Drawings department, including but not limited to research and review of the presence of underrepresented artists and communities in the collection, including Black, Indigenous, and female-identifying artists; research into opportunities for building the collection in the above areas; the opportunity to gain experience cataloguing works of art and using the YCBA’s collections database (TMS); and assistance with ongoing projects and other duties as assigned. 

The intern will report to Elizabeth Wyckoff, Curator of Prints and Drawings. 

Bartels Art Museum Scholar Academic-Year Internships

Through the generosity of Nancy Horton Bartels and her late husband, Henry E. Bartels, the YCBA offers academic-year internships to Yale undergraduates. These internships are intended to introduce students to museum operations and best practices. Interns are paid $17.50 per hour and work up to ten hours a week. 

About the YCBA

The Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) is the largest and most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. The YCBA's collections of paintings, sculpture, and works on paper (which include archives, drawings, manuscripts, photographs, prints, and rare books) present the story of British art and culture, and its global contexts, from the fifteenth century to today. An extensive reference library is available to the staff and public to support research on British art, the collections, and their histories. The YCBA's exhibition of the permanent collection provides an overview of British art, culture, and history over six centuries. It is the subject of research by graduate and undergraduate students, postdoctoral associates, and visiting scholars. Special exhibitions also take place on a rotating basis.

Eligibility

All current Yale undergraduates are eligible to apply. Graduating seniors are not eligible for academic year internships after graduation. Academic-year interns must be available to work ten hours a week. Employment is contingent upon successful completion of background and credit check.

Required Skills

• Excellent written and oral communication skills.
• Excellent attention to detail.
• Excellent computer skills. Proficiency in MS Office programs, particularly Word and Excel, is preferred. 
• High level of discretion and confidentiality in handling museum information.

To Apply

The application is now closed. Please check back here next year. 

Academic Year 2024–2025 Bartels Internships

Advancement and External Affairs 

The YCBA Advancement and External Affairs division seeks an academic-year intern to assist with preparations for the reopening of the museum to the public in spring 2025. The intern will contribute to the planning of events celebrating the reopening, including those planned for Yale commencement, reunion, and family weekends. The student will help with efforts to engage younger and more diverse audiences, with a focus on outreach to undergraduate students. They will also assist the division with assembling invitation lists of former interns, Student Guides, student workers, Visiting Scholars, Yale in London alumni, and other constituents. This internship is ideal for students seeking to gain a deeper understanding of communications, marketing, membership development, and visitor engagement at a cultural institution.

Paintings and Sculpture: Elizabethan Splendor and George Stubbs Exhibition Projects   

The Yale Center for British Art is offering an exciting opportunity for a student to gain experience working in the department of Paintings and Sculpture, which forms a central part of the museum’s curatorial division. The role will be split between two exhibition projects that are currently being developed by curators in the Paintings and Sculpture department.

The first is an exhibition of Tudor portraiture that will explore the practice of portrait painting from the first decades of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to the time of her successor James I. It will bring together some of the most iconic images from this period to show how artists combined sumptuous detail with dense symbolism to promote ideas of familial and political power. The second is an exhibition that will showcase the work of George Stubbs, one of the greatest animal painters and anatomical draftsmen of all time, whose work is exceptionally well represented in the YCBA collection.

The intern will help in the preparation of materials for both exhibitions, including conducting background research and assisting with managing object lists, and, where appropriate, contributing to the creation of written content. The role would be particularly well suited to a student with an interest in British history and art of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.  

The intern will report to Lucinda Lax, Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, and Edward Town, Assistant Curator of Paintings and Sculpture. 

For more information, contact James Vanderberg, Educator, High School, College, University, and Community Outreach: ycba.internships@yale.edu.