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 center to house BGC’s Study Collection is planned for 8 West 86th Street.

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).

Photo: Courtesy of the Lee B. Anderson Estate

In 2015, the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation generously established a named fellowship for Bard Graduate Center students seeking their master’s degrees with interest in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American and European decorative arts. Four talented and deserving students have thus far received the fellowship and gone on to enroll in doctoral programs or to begin rewarding careers in the arts.

Lee Anderson, who worked for a time as an arts education teacher, has been referred to as the godfather of the Gothic revival in America. It is largely because of his impressive personal collection that the style has been rekindled among designers and other tastemakers. In 1976, the collection was included in a landmark exhibition entitled The Gothic Revival Style in America, 1830–1870 at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, and objects from the collection have been featured in such publications as the New York Times, House & Garden, and Art & Antiques.

Lee passed away in 2010, but he left a legacy of philanthropic support through the Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation, whose mission is to support programs and organizations that advance an appreciation for the decorative arts. In addition to Bard Graduate Center, the Foundation has supported master’s students at Parsons School of Design and Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, and has lent vital support to the publishing of Partners in Design: Alfred H. Barr Jr. and Philip Johnson, a seminal text edited by David A. Hanks about the influence of the German Bauhaus on American aesthetics.

The Foundation’s gifts to Bard Graduate Center in the form of The Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation Fellowship in the Decorative Arts and The Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation’s Dean’s Prize have supported the development of the next generation of decorative arts scholars, and we remain immensely grateful.