Explore how our Majolica Mania exhibition came together with the curatorial team. Our curators will reflect on the origin story of the exhibition, their research process, and the evolution of this unique project.

Meet the Speakers!

Earl Martin is an associate curator at Bard Graduate Center (BGC), and a specialist in design and decorative arts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. During his tenure at the BGC, he has curated Knoll Textiles, 1945–2010 (2011) and overseen numerous other exhibitions and publications, including Dutch New York Between East and West: The World of Margrieta van Varick (2009); Swedish Wooden Toys (2015); and John Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London (2017). Before coming to the BGC, he was a curatorial intern in the product design and decorative arts department of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, where he earned his MA in the program administered by Parsons School of Design, The New School.

Dr. Laura Microulis is a research curator at Bard Graduate Center in New York. A material culture scholar with a specialization in nineteenth-century decorative arts and design, her past published work has focused on the recovery of institutional histories, the nature of patronage relationships, and the narrative life cycles of objects and interiors. Most recently, she was a project director for the forthcoming exhibition and publication, Majolica Mania: Transatlantic Pottery in England and the United States, 1850–1915.

Dr. Susan Weber is Founder and Director of the Bard Graduate Center, where she is the Iris Horowitz Professor in the History of Decorative Arts. She is the author of The Secular Furniture of E. W. Godwin (1999) and editor and contributing author of the catalogue E. W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer (1999). She has co-authored and served as editor for numerous exhibition catalogues, including Thomas Jeckyll: Architect and Designer, 1827–1881 (2003); Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry (2004); James “Athenian” Stuart, 1713–1788: The Rediscovery of Antiquity (2006); William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain (2013); and John Lockwood Kipling: Arts & Crafts in the Punjab and London (2017). She is the recipient of many awards, including the Philip C. Johnson Award of the Society of Architectural Historians (2005), Soane Foundation Honors from Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation (2010), and the College Art Association’s Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award (2015).