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Bard Graduate Center is an advanced graduate research institute in New York City dedicated to the cultural histories of the material world. Our MA and PhD degree programs, Gallery exhibitions, research initiatives, scholarly publications and public programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

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Applications for our MA program may be submitted until March 1, 2025





About

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 gave a paper on the aesthetics of Roger Fry at the annual American Society for Aesthetics Eastern Meeting and presented summarizing remarks to conclude the symposium, Object Lessons: The Panza Collection Initiative at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. At the symposium, LaurelX: Celebrating the Career of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich at the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, Cambridge, Massachusetts, he presented a paper on “Harvard, History, and a House Museum.” He is currently in residence in Göttingen for his annual two-month period as Permanent Fellow of the Lichtenberg-Kolleg (Advanced Study Institute).

Paul Stirton
presented the keynote address at the three-day conference “Visualizing Cataclysm and Renewal: Visual Culture and War Representations in Central Europe in World War One and its Aftermath,” organized by the Budapest Historical Museum in May. His talk was entitled “The Processes of Modernity: Hungarian Visual Culture and the First World War.”

Ittai Weinryb
is a visiting professor this summer at Passau University in Bavaria where he and his students are studying the votive paintings in the nearby pilgrimage Church of Mariahilf. With Professor Beate Fricke, he organized a conference at the University of Bern on incense burners across cultures.

Catherine Whalen
and Meredith Linn represented Bard Graduate Center at the annual conference of the North Eastern Public Humanities Consortium on April 26-27, hosted by the University of Massachusetts Boston, Harvard University, and Tufts University. PhD candidate Colin Fanning also gave a presentation on museums, the craft of exhibitions, and strategies for audience outreach. Topics of inquiry ranged from community partnerships to digital humanities to academic initiatives in public intellectual work. The mission of the consortium, founded by Yale University, is to foster scholarly public engagement animated by humanistic inquiry in support of art, culture, history, and education for a more democratic society. Whalen attended the annual meeting of the Consortium for American Material Culture, hosted by the University of Delaware’s Center for Material Culture Studies and the Winterthur Museum. Founded by Dean Peter N. Miller at Bard Graduate Center in 2007, the consortium has brought together leading academics and curators from major institutions at annual meetings to discuss a broad range of issues in material culture studies.