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).

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<a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/713"><em>Century Vase</em></a> and <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/613"><em>Liberty Cup and Saucer</em></a>, 1876, designed by Karl L. H. Mueller and manufactured by Union Porcelain Works, examined by Bard Graduate Center students studying the American Colonial Revival during a visit to Brooklyn Museum Collections Storage on March 15, 2018. Photo by Catherine Whalen.

During the spring 2018 semester, students in classes taught by Associate Professor Catherine Whalen reaped the benefits of Bard Graduate Center’s ongoing collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum.

Drawing upon the museum’s renowned American collections, participants in Whalen’s seminar on the American Colonial Revival met with Barry R. Harwood, curator of decorative arts, to study such landmark objects as the Century Vase, 1876, designed by Karl Müller and manufactured by Brooklyn’s own Union Porcelain Works for display at the U.S. Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

Students in her course on postwar United States craft and design met with Harwood to closely examine exemplary works such as the Ellington Necklace created circa 1962 by Art Smith, an important Afro-Caribbean jeweler and metalsmith based in Greenwich Village.

Both classes also explored the collections of the Brooklyn Museum Library and Archives, where librarian Beth Kushner and archivist Molly Seegers shared holdings ranging from lithographs depicting the 1864 Brooklyn Sanitary Fair to records of the 1953 milestone exhibition, Designer Craftsman U.S.A.