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).

MA, Class of 2010

Alexis Romano contributed an essay to Yohji Yamamoto, a catalogue edited by Ligaya Salazar for the exhibition Yohji Yamamoto at the V&A (March 12 - July 10, 2011) at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She will speak at the accompanying symposium on May 6.

MA, Class of 2008

Victoria Esterlis Motlin is the senior decorative arts editor at Artnet.

MA, Class of 2006

Sarah Archer will start a new job as the chief curator at the Philadelphia Art Alliance this summer. She will also be a guest curator for an exhibition on new designs in glass tentatively titled Bright Future at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery.

Emily Klug has recently been promoted to senior project coordinator in arts administration at the Pace Gallery where she is now focusing on conservation projects and international gallery operations.

MA, Class of 2006

Remi Spriggs Dyll is assistant curator of the Bayou Bend Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Her article, “The Glassware of James Hogan and James Powell and Sons,” will appear in the Journal of Glass Studies, 2011.

Scott W. Perkins, curator of collections and exhibitions at Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, recently returned from the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, after receiving a library grant for his dissertation on Eugene Beyer Masselink. In late 2010, Scott edited and contributed an essay on architect Bruce Goff’s designs for interiors in the accompanying book for Bruce Goff: A Creative Mind, an exhibition he co-curated with the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma. His essay, “Air,” accompanied the photographs of Thomas R. Schiff in Wright Panorama: Elements of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Architecture in 360 Degrees (Orange Frazer Press, 2010). Another essay on Zaha Hadid’s 2002 museum expansion project for Wright’s 1956 Price Tower will appear in Richard Longstreth’s forthcoming book, Additions, Subtractions, and Adjacencies: Preserving While Modifying the Work of Frank Lloyd Wright (University of Virginia Press). Scott also curated an exhibition for Mid-America Arts Alliance, Kansas City, on Wright’s 1954 home for the John Christian family in West Lafayette, Indiana. He continues to serve on the board of directors of the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy and represents Price Tower in their serial nomination of ten Frank Lloyd Wright buildings for consideration as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.