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).

A rendering of Seneca Village, established in the 19th century, before Central Park was built

Meredith Linn, associate professor and director of master’s studies at BGC, began researching Seneca Village, the once thriving free African American community that was displaced in 1857 to make way for Central Park, while she was a graduate student at Columbia University. She coauthored the 2018 archaeological site report of Seneca Village with project leaders and scholars Nan A. Rothschild, Diana diZerega Wall, and Cynthia Copeland, and she is currently cowriting a book on the area with Rothschild and Wall. So naturally, when Barnard professor Gergely Baics and his collaborators, Leah Meisterlin and Myles Zhang, began discussing the idea of a website that would visualize Seneca Village as it might have looked before it was destroyed, they asked Linn to join their team. Learn more about the website, which launched this year on Juneteenth (June 19), a day that commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the US, in this article written for the Barnard College magazine.