Bard Graduate Center is devoted to the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through research, advanced degrees, exhibitions, publications, and events.

Bard Graduate Center advances the study of decorative arts, design history, and material culture through its object-centered approach to teaching, research, exhibitions, publications, and events.

At BGC, we study the human past and present through their material expressions. We focus on objects and other material forms—from those valued for their aesthetic elements to the ordinary things used in everyday life.

Our accomplished interdisciplinary faculty inspires and prepares students in our MA and PhD programs for successful careers in academia, museums, and the private sector. We bring equal intellectual rigor to our acclaimed exhibitions, award-winning catalogues and scholarly publications, and innovative public programs, and we view all of these integrated elements as vital to our curriculum.

BGC’s campus comprises a state-of-the-art academic programs building at 38 West 86th Street, a gallery at 18 West 86th Street, and a residence hall at 410 West 58th Street. A new collection study center will open at 8 West 86th Street in 2026.

Founded by Dr. Susan Weber in 1993, Bard Graduate Center has become the preeminent institute for academic research and exhibition of decorative arts, design history, and material culture. BGC is an accredited unit of Bard College and a member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH).

Ivan Gaskell attended the 74th annual meeting of the American Society for Aesthetics in Seattle, November 16-19, where he delivered a response, “Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism and Ethical Overload,” in the session “Appreciation.”

Deborah Krohn gave a talk at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, on November 11, entitled “Bartolomeo Scappi’s Opera: The First Illustrated Cookbook.” Her book, Food and Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: Bartolomeo Scappi’s Paper Kitchens, is available from Routledge.

Paul Stirton presented a lecture on “Graphic Propaganda in the First World War” at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, on November 14. Afterwards, prospective students joined him and area alumni at an information session on Bard Graduate Center’s master’s and doctoral programs.

Catherine Whalen was chair and commentator for the session “American Outsiders and the Material Culture of Home” at the Annual Meeting of the American Studies Association (ASA), Home/Not Home: Centering American Studies Where We Are, held in Denver, November 17-20. Whalen’s session was sponsored by the ASA’s Material Culture Caucus and organized by Andrea Quintero, who earned her master’s degree at Bard Graduate Center in 2006 and is now a PhD candidate in the American Studies Program at Yale University.

Participants also included members of the Consortium for American Material Culture (CAMC), initiated by Dean Peter N. Miller at Bard Graduate Center in 2007. The all-CAMC member panel, “The Artifact’s (Home) Place in American Studies: Material Culture Pedagogy, Objectives, Curriculum,” was organized by William Moore, associate professor and director of the American & New England Studies Program at Boston University. The panelists were Katherine G. Grier, professor and director of the PhD program in American Civilization and the Museum Studies Program at the University of Delaware; Ann Smart Martin, professor of art history at the University of Wisconsin; and David Brody, associate professor of design studies at The New School/Parsons. For the session “Material Culture of Home-Making: Desire, Fantasy, and Possibility in the American Interior.” Another CAMC member, Sarah Anne Carter, curator and head of research at the Chipstone Foundation, presented on “Mrs. M.——-’s Cabinet: Truth, Fantasy, and Historical Fiction in the 21st-Century Museum,” a new installation in the Chipstone Galleries at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Bard Graduate Center and the Chipstone Foundation are midway through a five-year collaboration designed to provide students with opportunities to explore the Foundation’s collections and create their own exhibitions, including Behind the Glass and Introspective: Contemplations on Curating.