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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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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.

This symposium, complementing the exhibition Jan Tschichold and the New Typography at the Bard Graduate Center Gallery (on view February 14–July 7), examines the role of graphic design in the broader context of Weimar culture (1919-1933). This period witnessed considerable technological innovation in the printing industry, especially in applications of photography to the mass media, as well as a range of new practices within the design community of Central Europe. “Graphic design,” itself only began to emerge as a recognizable activity, if not a profession, at this time. Alongside the pace of change in the print and design sectors, this was also a period of intense debate regarding the role of advertising in modern society, set against a lively and fluid cultural scene shaped by literature, film, music, and drama, as well as politics and popular culture. The history of graphic design in this period is often related to contemporary painting, a link that Tschichold himself made in 1925. However, the broader history of design, technology, economics, and aesthetics played a similarly decisive role in the formation of modernist graphic design.


1 pm
Peter N. Miller
Bard Graduate Center
Welcome

Paul Stirton
Bard Graduate Center
Introduction


1:15 pm
Christopher Burke
University of Reading
Jan Tschichold: A Double Life


1:45 pm
Paul Stirton
Bard Graduate Center
The Bauhaus, the Ring, and the New Typography


2:15 pm
Dietrich C. Neumann
Brown University
“Leuchtreklame”: Illuminated Advertising in 1920s Berlin


2:45 pm
Coffee Break


3 pm
Juliet Kinchin
The Museum of Modern Art
“Under the Spell of Jan Tschichold”: MoMA and the New Typography


3:30 pm
Sandy Jones
University of Brighton; Victoria and Albert Museum
Lost and Found: The Jan Tschichold Acquisition at the V&A


4 pm
Robert Wiesenberger
The Clark Art Institute
The Model Bauhäusler? Herbert Bayer circa 1950


4:30 pm
Coffee Break


4:45 pm
Steven Heller
School of Visual Arts
The Americanization of the New Typography


5:15 pm
Questions and Discussion


5:45 pm
Reception