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).

Maude Bass-Kreuger (PhD, 2016) has accepted a three-year postdoctoral position at Leiden University in the Netherlands. She will be working among Leiden; Cambridge, England; and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, on a project entitled “Printing the Past: Architecture, Print Culture, and the Uses of the Past in Modern Europe.”

Amy Bogansky (PhD candidate) has curated the exhibition, City of Memory, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through May 14, 2017. Centering on William P. Chappel (1801–1878), a tinsmith and amateur painter who depicted scenes of early nineteenth-century New York City, it features twenty-seven small oil paintings from the Met’s collection that were probably executed late in the artist’s life.

Bea Thornton (MA, 2015), Shayla Black (MA, 2016), and Roberta Gorin (MA, 2016) are all working at the Gap Inc. Heritage and Design Archives, which conserves the clothing company’s nearly forty-seven year history. Bea is assistant in the heritage and design archives; Shayla and Robert are Gap brand print library assistants.