Art is required for all students from Pre-K through ninth grade and meets twice a week all year. In the Upper School, where art is an elective after ninth grade, over one third of the tenth through twelfth grade students continue to take art as a major course. Shipley's art department employs six full-time teachers, professionally educated and dedicated to the program.

AP Studio Art provides the most comprehensive preparation for a college art program.

• Offered for 20 years
• 100% of the 179 students who took the exam passed (3 or above), 80% received 4s and 5s.
• In the past 20 years, Shipley seniors earned 69% of 5s among Pennsylvania non-public school students.

Student work is exhibited regularly throughout the School and is published in most school publications. Each year's efforts are celebrated with an arts night. Professional work is on exhibit in the Speer Gallery and from time to time visiting artists come in and speak to the students. Shipley art work has been exhibited at the Main Line Center of the Arts, Beaumont Village, Woodmere Art Museum, Inter-School Art Exhibition, and the Franklin Mint. The students have won numerous prizes in both the Montgomery County High School Art Competition and Montco High School Student Show.

Trips to museums in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington are part of the program in all grades and during alternate years we offer a spring break trip to Italy for high school students to study Renaissance art and architecture.

In recent years Shipley art students have been accepted into art and design programs at RISD, Carnegie Mellon University, Syracuse University, Maryland Institute College of Art, Washington University, and other major art programs throughout the country.