We provide learning opportunities through public lectures, internships, and community outreach.

Internship Program

In 2012, the AD&A Museum initiated a dynamic undergraduate internship program in order to fulfill its goal of engaging with members of our campus community and the greater Santa Barbara area. The Museum has since partnered with various art and culture institutions in Santa Barbara, as well as with many different departments of the university, to provide interns with a wide range of learning opportunities to contribute to their academic and professional development.

The AD&A Museum Internship Seminar (ARTHI192A/B) is a requirement of the Internship Program, aiming to lay the theoretical and practical foundation for the pursuit of future work and studies in museums through class assignments and discussions, guest lectures, field trips, and outreach initiatives.

Interns must thus attend the weekly classes and fulfill the seminar tasks, in addition to attending and participating in museum events and conducting their individual internships. Interns are required to commit to the Program for the full school year.

The call for applications opens in the Spring quarter for the succeeding school year, but the Museum accepts applications on a rolling basis, in case any positions become available. The AD&A Museum also welcomes students who wish to volunteer in various capacities, as it showcases initiative and interest in the activities promoted in the Museum.

Get the 2025-26 AD&A Museum Internship Program application form

Image: Museum Interns, 2024-25, photographed on field trip to The Getty Center, Los Angeles.

Art Collections

Of considerable breadth for a museum of its size, the AD&A Museum’s Art Collections includes the Morgenroth Collection of Renaissance Medals and Plaquettes, the Sedgwick Collection of Old Master Paintings, the Feitelson Collection of Old Master Drawings, the Ken Trevey Collection of American Realist Prints, the Fernand Lungren Collection, and a growing collection of contemporary artwork in all media.

Contemporary holdings focus on artists active in California, particularly in the Santa Barbara community. The AD&A Museum also features significant holdings in photography, including an extensive collection of vintage daguerreotypes, tintypes and ambrotypes from 1840-1880 as well as works by Muybridge, Weegee, William Wegman, Gary Winogrand, and Carrie Mae Weems. In addition, the art collection is strong in ethnographic objects.

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Architecture and Design Collection

In addition to his two decades of stewardship as Director of the museum from 1961-1981, David Gebhard established the museum’s Architecture and Design Collection (ADC) in 1963, which has grown to become one of the largest and finest architecture and design archives in North America. The collection documents the heritage of Southern California-based designers, architects and planners. By 1969, a number of internationally significant collections had been acquired including the design archives of R.M. Schindler and Irving J. Gill.

In 1981, the ADC became a special unit of the Museum with its own curator (appointed as a full time staff member in 1997). The ADC remains a special part of the AD&A Museum holdings and is essential for studying the built environment of Southern California from the late 19th through the mid-20th centuries.

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