Greetings from West 86th Street.

In this issue of our newsletter, I’m happy to share some exciting news. Dr. Julia Siemon, Bard Graduate Center’s chief curator since 2023, has stepped into the newly created role of deputy director. She will retain oversight of the BGC Gallery along with her curatorial responsibilities. I will continue in my role as director, of course, working in concert with Julia to strengthen the resources, relationships, and expertise that allow BGC to flourish. I am grateful to have a partner who so fully embodies the institution’s vision and values.

As we welcome Julia into this new role, we celebrate another success in the BGC Gallery. Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds, curated by Barry Bergdoll and Martin Bressani, is on view through May 24. It brings to light the dazzling oeuvre of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, whose drawings for Notre-Dame de Paris’s nineteenth-century restoration also guided its recent reconstruction after the 2019 fire. The show has received some wonderful press; the Wall Street Journal called it “an embarrassment of riches” and the artist himself “one of the world’s great pictorial thinkers, whose graphic curiosity recognized no boundaries between geology, anatomy and architecture.” I urge you to see it before it closes.

In a recent survey of alumni, we learned how BGC’s focus on students’ original scholarship has supported their professional endeavors across a wide range of careers. Naturally, I am thrilled to share more about the research our current students are pursuing, sometimes in collaboration with our alumni, as you will learn in this issue’s story about BGC’s representation in the upcoming Theoretical Architecture Group conference, and sometimes very much under their own steam, as is the case with the graduate student research symposium they have organized for May 1.

Along with our dynamic lineup of Wednesdays@BGC events, I am pleased to share recent additions to our calendar. On Tuesday, April 21, Julius Bryant, keeper emeritus of the Victoria & Albert Museum, will present his lecture entitled “The Great Exhibition in Art: London’s First World’s Fair.” The following Tuesday, April 28, we welcome Matthew Yokobosky, senior curator of fashion and material culture at the Brooklyn Museum, who will deliver the annual Iris Foundation Awards Lecture, entitled “Staging Fashion.” Finally, BGC professor emeritus Paul Stirton returns to 86th Street to present “Gothic vs. Modern: Letterforms and Graphic Design in Weimar Germany” on Tuesday, May 5. I hope you can attend one or all of these events.

Also in this issue, you can read Barb Elam’s tribute to Susan Yecies, who gifted more objects to BGC’s Study Collection than any other individual donor. We are grateful for her generosity, which will benefit many, many BGC students in the years to come.

Finally, I hope you will join me for the 29th Annual Iris Foundation Awards on Wednesday, April 29, which benefits BGC’s student scholarship fund. At this year’s luncheon, we will honor five well-deserving pillars in our field of decorative arts, design history, and material culture: William and Ellen Taubman (outstanding patrons), John Guy (outstanding lifetime achievement), Matthew Yokobosky (outstanding mid-career scholar), and Sylvie Lhermite-King (outstanding dealer). If you are unable to attend, I do hope you will consider making a gift to support our students.

I hope to see you on 86th Street very soon!



Susan Weber
Founder and Director