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 published “University and College Museums: Some Challenges,” in the spring 2016 issue of the Antioch Review. “The Altenberg Altar,” his review of the exhibition Schaufenster des Himmels: Der Altenberger Altar und seine Bildausstattung at the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, Germany, appeared in the September 2016 issue of Burlington Magazine.

Aaron Glass spoke at the panel, “Culture and Media in the Academy, On Screen and in the Public Eye,” part of “NYU Culture & Media @ 30: Past, Present, Future,” on September 9. He participated in the workshop, “Thinking through the Museum,” at Concordia University, Montreal, September 17-18. On September 29, he will moderate the screening of Kwakwaka’wakw filmmaker Barb Cranmer’s Our Voices, Our Selves at NYU Center for Media, Culture and History.

Andrew Morrall reviewed Berthold Kress’s Divine Diagrams: The Manuscripts and Drawings of Paul Lautensack (1477/78–1558) (Brill, 2014) in the fall 2016 issue of Renaissance Quarterly. On September 10, he gave a plenary talk entitled “’On the Picture of King Charles I…written in Psalms.’ Devotion, Memory and the Micrographic Portrait” at the Fifth Biennial Conference of the Swiss Association of Medieval and Early Modern English Studies, in Zurich. The conference theme was “What is an Image in Medieval and Early Modern England?”

Elizabeth Simpson gave the keynote address at the 2016 Lanka Decorative Arts (LDA) conference, “Kussiya—The Kitchen: Culinary Ethnology in Sri Lanka.” Her talk was entitled “Food, Kitchens, and Banqueting in Antiquity.” The four-day event, which took place in August in Colombo and Galle, Sri Lanka, addressed the history, design, and material culture surrounding meals, including kitchens and their functions, banquet furnishings and utensils, and specialized cuisines influenced by indigenous and external factors, such as colonialism, transmissions, and hybrid fusions. PhD candidate Antonia Behan (MA 2014) also presented a paper at the conference, which was organized by LDA founder Dr. Ayesha Abdur-Rahman (MA 2000). Part of the ongoing reconciliation effort following the Sri Lankan civil war, the conference brought together scholars and students from various ethnic groups from around the island.