About
Upcoming Exhibitions
BGC Gallery will resume its exhibition programming this September with the return of Sèvres Extraordinaire! Sculpture from 1740 until Today, originally slated for fall 2024.
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.

About
28th Annual Iris Foundation Awards
Honoring Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Dr. Julius Bryant, Dr. Meredith Martin, and Katherine Purcell
Events
Wednesdays @ BGC
Join us this spring for weekly programming!





About

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).


21 Bard Graduate Center students—18 MAs and 3 PhDs—received their diplomas at Bard College’s commencement ceremony on May 26. We look forward to following the careers of these emerging scholars, and we are thrilled that two of the graduating MA students will continue their PhD studies at BGC.

Photo by Samuel Stuart Hollenshead.

PhD dissertation titles and MA qualifying paper titles are listed below each student’s name.


Doctor of Philosophy

Julia Grace Lillie, New York, NY / B.A., University of St. Andrews; M.A., Bard Graduate Center
“Finding Refuge in Print: Netherlandish Immigrant Engravers in Cologne, 1570–1610”
CINOA Award for Outstanding Dissertation

Courtney Ann Stewart, Toronto, Canada / B.A., Western University; M.A., University of Toronto
“The Multifaceted History of the Brilliant Cut Diamond: From Sacred Solar Motif to Commercial Commodity, 1600–1750”

Diana Xiaoyi Yang, Shanghai, China / M.A. Columbia University
“Migrating Dragons: Zhangzhou Ceramics for Japan and Southeast Asia”
Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation Prize

Master of Philosophy

Caroline Elenowitz-Hess, New York, NY / B.A., Yale University; A.A.S., Fashion Institute of Technology; M.A., Parsons School of Design / The New School
“The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris: Politics, Art, and Fashion in France’s Third Republic”

Kenna Libes, Bethesda, MD / B.A., Georgetown University; A.M., Brown University; M.A., Fashion Institute of Technology
“‘The best of a bad job’: Navigating Fashion and Fatness in the Long Nineteenth Century”

Jeremy Julien Reeves, Montreal, Quebec / B.A., Sciences Po/Columbia University; M.Phil., University of Cambridge
“Sixteenth-Century French Firearms”

Master of Arts

Karlyn A. Allenbrand, Olathe, KS / B.F.A., Savannah College of Art and Design
“‘Powered by the Sun’: The Commodification of Solar Energy during the Cold War, 1954–1960”

Antonia Anagnostopoulos, Kitchener, Ontario / B.A., University of Toronto
“‘Are You French, Greek, Ottoman, Hellene, Or Roman?’: ‘Amalia’ Dress in the New Greek Nation, 1832–1865”

Irène Berthezène, Paris, France / M.A., ENSCI Les Ateliers
“Recovering the Design of Noémi Pernessin Raymond”

Elliot Camarra, West Falmouth, MA / B.F.A., Rhode Island School of Design
“On Reflection: Mirrors at the Sanctuary of Artemis at Brauron”
Clive Wainwright Award

Katherine Cohen, London, England / B.A., Wesleyan University
“How to Fix a Broken Pot: Conceptual Normativity in the Archaeology of Craft”

Angela Hermano Crenshaw, Providence, RI / B.A., University of St. Andrews
“‘From out the filmy piña draperies around her white and shapely neck’: Philippine Piña Textiles and Discourses of Distinction”

Allison Frances Donoghue, Cohasset, MA / B.A., Connecticut College
“‘A bead, a thimble or some other pauble’: Thimbles and Self-Identity in Early New York”
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts Award

William Dunsmore, McKinney, TX / B.A., Simon Fraser University
“‘A Winter Temperature in the Summer Time’: Preserving Nineteenth-Century Lagerkellers and German-American Heritage”

Mackensie Baxter Griffin, Trumbull, CT / B.A., Bard College; M.A., New York University
“A Seat at the Table: The Dining Table in Black Art and Design, 1850–2022”

Robert Christopher Hewis, Grimsby, England / B.A., University of Cambridge
“Drinks and Desire: Coffee Culture in Early Modern Europe”
Clive Wainwright Award

Raphaël Machiels, London, England / B.A., Leiden University
“Finding Flanders: (Sub)national Identities in the Work of Maarten van Severen”

Patricia V.B. Madsen, Forest Hills, NY / B.A., Harvard University; J.D., Columbia University
“The Business of Art: The Union Porcelain Works”

Sydney Maresca, Kingston, NY / B.A., Sarah Lawrence College; M.F.A., New York University
“‘Coats Woven of Turkie-feathers’: Indigenous Featherwork Mantles in the Seventeenth-Century American Northeast”

Caroline Genevieve Montague, Minneapolis, MN / B.A., Barnard College
“Gender, Technology, and Fashion: Knit Stockings in Seventeenth-Century England”

Rachel Salem-Wiseman, Toronto, Ontario / B.A., Queen’s University
“Ruff Work: Laundresses and their Labor in Early Modern England and the Netherlands”

Samantha Kanoelani Santana, Livermore, CA / B.A., New York University
“Picture Perfect Hula Girls: A Story of Hula in New York City”

Mabel Capability Taylor, Muir Beach, CA / B.A., Barnard College
“Nostalgic Bulldozers and Glass Boxes: Nineteenth-Century Spectacle at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the 1970s”
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts Award

Luli Zou, Yantai, China / B.A., Beijing Union University; M.Sc., University of Hong Kong
“Beyond the China Trade—A Biography of a Qing Dressing Case in Kingscote, Newport”