It is located in the James B. Duke House at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 78th Street and in the Stephen Chan House at 14 East 78th Street, with accessibility to museums and libraries in New York City. It offers the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy, a Certificate in Curatorial Studies issued jointly with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a Diploma in Conservation of Works of Art. The courses of study prepare students to enter careers in university teaching, museum work, independent scholarship, art criticism, and art conservation. The Institute strives to give its students, whatever their goals, not only a sound knowledge in the history of art but also a foundation in scholarship, connoisseurship and theory as a basis for independent critical judgment and research. To the student who goes beyond the master's degree to the doctorate, it provides a deeper understanding of a major area of the subject and develops a capacity for independent scholarship.
Research is as important a part of the program as instruction.
The faculty is composed of specialists in the history of art, archaeology, conservation, and technology and each year includes visiting scholars from this country and abroad. Members of the curatorial and conservation staff of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art regularly take a major part in teaching courses. The Duke House, completed in 1912, was commissioned by tobacco magnate James B. Duke. The project was realized primarily by Julian Abele, who was also responsible for the eighteenth-century interior detailing. In 1958 Mrs. James Duke and Doris Duke presented the building to the Institute.