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).

Jeffrey Collins was invited to participate in the international symposium on “The Nomadic Object: Early Modern Religious Art in Global Contact” sponsored by the NYU Abu Dhabi Institute from January 18-21. Featuring scholars from Europe, China, Japan, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, the symposium investigated how increased global contact and exchange during the Age of Exploration problematized the status of objects and their engagement with audiences around the world, offering the opportunity to look across cultures once more and construct a truly global art history. Collins’s paper, prepared with Associate Professor Meredith Martin of NYU New York, was entitled “‘A Fleet of Little Gilded Vessels’: Early Modern Incense Boats in Global Context.” On January 28-29, again with Professor Martin and Françoise and Georges Selz Lecturer Robert Wellington of the Australian National University, Professor Collins co-hosted the international conference “Versailles in the World: 1660-1789.” Held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and NYU’s Washington Square campus, the event was co-sponsored by NYU’s Dean for Humanities, departments of French and Art History, and Institute for French Studies; Bard Graduate Center; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ivan Gaskell is a member of the CAA Museum Committee, which met during the annual CAA conference in Washington, D.C., in early February.

Freyja Hartzell presented a paper at the CAA conference entitled “The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Material Politics of Glass in Modern German Design.” In December, Hartzell received the Decorative Art Society’s 2015 Robert C. Smith Award for the best article published in 2014 in English on the decorative arts, for “A Renovated Renaissance: Richard Riemerschmid’s Modern Interiors for the Thieme House in Munich,” which appeared in Interiors (Volume 5, Issue 1).

Deborah L. Krohn‘s book, Food and Knowledge in Renaissance Italy: Bartolomeo Scappi’s Paper Kitchens, is available from Ashgate.

Andrew Morrall represented Bard Graduate Center at the meeting of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH) held during the CAA conference in Washington, D.C.