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).

Photo by Bruce M. White

Majolica offers a colorful window into the world of British and American life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Nicholas de Godoy Lopes, a Bard Graduate Center PhD student who works in the Public Programs department as a gallery educator, created an audio guide to the Majolica Mania exhibition. The guide features 15 objects from the exhibition, including vases, plates, teapots, and a garden seat, an umbrella stand, an ice pail, and a water cooler, among others.

Visitors to BGC’s gallery can use the audio guide to enhance their understanding of the objects in the exhibition, and the guide is also available online for those who cannot visit the gallery. deGodoy Lopes’s narration explains why the objects look the way they do and how they might have been used in the Victorian home. It also puts the objects into their historical and cultural contexts and reflects on the tastes, habits, anxieties, and beliefs of those who designed, made, and used them.