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).


Ayesha Abdur-Rahman (MA ’00) received her PhD in November 2015 from the Postgraduate Institute of Archeology, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. Her dissertation was on pre-colonial Sri Lankan furniture.

Jennifer Scanlan (MA ’04), curatorial and exhibitions director at the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center in Oklahoma City, is among Artnet’s “16 Female Curators Shaking Things Up in 2016.”

Shax Riegler (MA ’06, PhD candidate) has been appointed executive editor of Architectural Digest .

Susie Silbert (MA ’11) has been appointed curator of modern and contemporary glass at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Jeanne Gutierrez (MA ‘12) is a research fellow at the New-York Historical Society where she is working in their newly established Center for the Study of Women’s History scheduled to open in December 2016.

Hadley Jensen (MA ’13, PhD candidate) has been awarded a 2015 Craft Research Fund Project Research Grant of $5,500 for her dissertation topic “Shaped by the Camera: Navajo Weavers and the Photography of Making in the American Southwest, 1880-1945.”

Sarah Rogers Morris (MA ’13) and her husband, Corbin, are thrilled to announce the birth of their son, Milo Sullivan Morris, on February 9. The family is doing well. Sarah is the associate director of the Mies van der Rohe Society and a freelance writer.

Andrew Gardner (MA ’15), curatorial assistant at Cooper Hewitt, worked late and on weekends in preparation for the February 12 opening of Beauty—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial. Curated by Ellen Lupton and Andrea Lipps with curatorial assistance by Andrew, the exhibition features the work of sixty-three designers and explores the idea of sensual experience and the role that beauty plays in designing for the twenty-first century. It is on view through August 21.

Sarah Pickman (MA ‘15) and Claire McRee (MA ‘15) are the curators of Gilded Age Glamour: Fashions from the Bartow-Pell Collection, which opened at the Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum in February. On view through April 30, the exhibition features late-nineteenth century highlights from the Museum’s costume collection—including women’s, men’s, and children’s garments as well as period fashion illustrations—and explores the connections between the collection and the history of the Museum: from its beginnings as a grand country home in the 1850s to its development as a museum in the twentieth century.

Minda Stockdale (MA ‘15), assistant cataloging librarian at Park City Library in Park City, Utah, also works in their Special Events Department, which recently hosted the Sundance Film Festival.