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).

Over the last few years, I have headed a major Bard Graduate Center project, namely a global survey of decorative arts, design, and material culture from 1400 to 2000 and, together with Director Susan Weber, edited History of Design: Decorative Arts and Material Culture, 1400-2000, Yale University Press, 2013. For many years my two main areas of research were furniture and interior design, and issues of gender and class (across a wide range of design and film related topics). My more recent work has focused on design and film (separately and together) in the USA in the twentieth century. I have also worked closely with directors making films about design and designers, including Charles and Ray Eames: the architect and the painter (PBS December 2011). My most recent publications are listed below. Others include Women Designers in the USA, 1900-200: Diversity and Difference 2000, Charles and Ray Eames: Designers of the Twentieth Century, 1995, The Gendered Object 1996, and You Tarzan: Masculinity, Movies, and Men, 1993 and Me Jane: Masculinity, Movies, and Women, 1950 (both with Janet Thumim). Fellowships I have received include The Getty, The Royal College of Art, London, the British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust.

Selected Recent Publications

Eva Zeisel: Life, Design, Beauty, editor (Chronicle Books, 2013)

Saul Bass: A Life in Design and Film (Laurence King Publishers, 2011)

“Reassessing the Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock Collaboration” in West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture (Spring-summer 2011, vol 18, no. 01)

“At Home with California Modern”, in Living in a Modern Way: California Design 1930-1965, ed. Wendy Kaplan (MIT Press, 2011)

“New Environments for Modern Living: ‘at home’ with the Eameses”, in Penny Sparke, et.al, (eds.) Designing the Modern Interior: From the Victorians to Today (Berg, 2009)

“Frank Lloyd Wright’s Interior”, with Scott Perkins, in The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Making of the Modern Museum (The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2008)

Appearance in Saul Bass: Title Champ, (2008 directed by Gary Leva), Leva Film Works & Universal Studios (with Martin Scorsese and Kyle Cooper)

“The Evolution of the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman” in The Eames Lounge Chair: an Icon of Modern Design, ed. David Hanks (Merrell, 2006)

“Morale and the Home Front; Fashion. Femininity, and Propaganda in World War II Britain”, in Wearing Propaganda: Textiles on the Home Front in Japan, Britain and the USA, ed. Jacqueline Atkins (Yale University Press/Bard Graduate Center, 2005)

Selected Courses

622 Issues in Design History and Material Culture Studies

754 Film and Design in Hollywood

797 Gender Issues in Design

798 Charles Rennie Mackintosh

824 Twentieth-Century Interiors

824 Charles and Ray Eames: Design, Architecture, Exhibitions, Films, and Multimedia Presentations, c. 1940-1978

875 Design in Film and Television: Sets, Costume, Titles, Advertising, and Films about Design