About
28th Annual Iris Foundation Awards
Honoring Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Dr. Julius Bryant, Dr. Meredith Martin, and Katherine Purcell
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.






Research

Bard Graduate Center is a research institute for advanced, interdisciplinary study of diverse material worlds. We support the innovative scholarship of our faculty and students as well as resident fellows, guest curators and artists, and visiting speakers.

Photo by Fresco Arts Team.

Our Public Humanities + Research department focuses on making scholarly work widely available and accessible through the coordination of the fellowship program and public programming that combines academic research with exhibition-related events. Across the institution—from the classroom to the gallery, from publications to this website—we utilize digital media to facilitate and share original research. This section outlines current programming and provides a repository for past scholarly content.
Pat Kirkham is Professor Emerita at Bard Graduate Center and was recently appointed Professor of Design History at Kingston University. She studied history as an undergraduate at the University of Leeds and received her PhD from the University of London. She taught the history of architecture and design as well as film and media studies at De Montfort University in England before moving to Bard Graduate Center. Her many publications include Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century (MIT Press, 1995); Women Designers in the USA, 1900–2000: Diversity and Difference (ed. and contributing author; Yale UP, 2000); Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design (Laurence King, 2011); The Gendered Object (ed. and contributing author; Manchester UP, 1996); and History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400–2000 (ed. with Susan Weber; Yale UP, 2013). At Bard Graduate Center, she will be working towards completing a book on the multiple interconnections between Charles and Ray Eames and Hollywood. Her study brings together social, cultural, design, film, and political history, and she is keen to assess the interrelations between the Eameses’ networks of friendship and acquaintance and those related to work.