Art and Design Gallery
The exhibition space showcases the work of students, faculty, and distinguished alumni, as well as invited guest artists.
Exhibitions
The Art and Design Gallery is open from 9 am until 5 pm, seven days per week. The gallery is located at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and West 27th Street.
NURTURING THE ARTIST:
Student Life From the FIT Special Collections
FIT Special Collections, part of the Gladys Marcus Library, is known for its fashion documentation through rare periodicals, fashion plates, monographs detailing all aspects of the industry, and unique manuscript collections. These materials provide entrance into often unpublished behind-the-scenes processes critical to fashion design, marketing, forecasting, and research.
The College Archives, a lesser-known part of the Special Collections, documents the history of the college, our evolving programs, and the student body over eight decades. At this momentous time, on the cusp of ushering in new leadership when longstanding President Joyce F. Brown retires, we delved into the College Archives to explore documentary evidence of how students, their work, and campus life in general has been recorded since the college’s inception in 1944.
Nurturing the Artist is curated by FIT Special Collections and College Archives, Gladys Marcus Library.
Gift of Making:
A Whimsical Celebration of Art, Design, and Creativity at FIT
Art and Design Gallery Windows
The Gift of Making transforms the Art and Design Gallery’s windows into a whimsical celebration of creativity and craft. Inspired by the enchantment of holiday displays, the installation invites viewers into a “winter tale” about the joy of designing and making.
Each window unfolds as a chapter in this story, featuring student artwork from all 17 majors in the School of Art and Design. Stacked, open-fronted gift boxes serve as cabinets of curiosity, framing the inventive objects, garments, and images that represent the many facets of art and design at FIT. Interwoven with playful ribbons, floating snowflakes, and maker's tools, the displays evoke the shared spirit of creativity and the community of makers behind it.
Evolution: Fashion Design AAS
Evolution is the fall/winter Fashion Design AAS exhibition, exploring the natural cycle of fashion through a floral lens. For this showcase, students delve into the theme of evolution—from the seed of a concept to the buds of growth, from the blossoms of creativity to the final bloom of completion. Each phase of their process reflects change, transformation, and renewal.
In the spirit of collaboration, students from the Illustration Department interpret transformation through fashion illustrations, while students from the Photography Department capture moments of becoming—documenting their peers in the Fashion Design AAS program as they bring new visions to life.
Conception, iteration, and creation—Evolution celebrates fashion’s continual, ever-unfolding movement forward, shaped by growth and renewal.
This exhibition is organized by the Fashion Design AAS Exhibition Committee, in collaboration with Dan Shefelman, chair of Illustration, and Allison Wade Wermager, chair of Photography.
Recently Past
Adapt/Evolve is a thought-provoking exhibition that examines adaptive and inclusive design across disciplines within FIT’s School of Art and Design, including Fashion Design, Footwear and Accessories Design, Interior Design, Graphic Design, Jewelry Design, and Toy Design.
The exhibition will highlight how interdependence is central to how we live, interact, and create inclusive design. Adapt/Evolve reexamines the idea of autonomy and questions traditional divides between dependence and independence. Through multidisciplinary objects, the show also emphasizes how accessible and adaptive design has become a vehicle for breaking down barriers, allowing us to engage with one another more equally.
Adapt/Evolve will be accompanied by a symposium, which will be held October 16, 1 –6 pm. The symposium will feature panel discussions and presentations investigating adaptive design.
The opening reception is on Thursday, September 18, 2025, 5-7 PM.
