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).

Ronald T. Labaco (MA ’02) was named director of exhibitions and chief curator at the Morris Museum in Morristown, New Jersey, effective October 1, 2018. He previously served as senior curator at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York City.

Monica Obniski (MA ‘06) curated an upcoming exhibition entitled Serious Play: Design in Mid-century America that will feature designs by Charles and Ray Eames, Alexander Girard, Isamu Noguchi, and Eva Zeisel. It will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum from September 28, 2018 through January 6, 2019, and then at the Denver Art Museum from May 5 through August 25, 2019.

Ezra Shales (PhD ‘07), a professor at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, has released a new book, T he Shape of Craft (Reaktion Books 2018).

Rebecca Tilles (MA ‘07), associate curator at the Hillwood Museum in Washington, DC, is working on an upcoming exhibition entitled Perfume & Seduction (February 16 to June 9, 2019) that will feature examples of 18th to 20th-century perfume bottles and accessories collected by the museum’s founder, Marjorie Merriweather Post, as well as eighteenth-century perfume bottles on loan from a French private collection.

Christine Griffiths (MA ‘13, PhD candidate) accepted a junior fellowship in Garden & Landscape Studies from Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, DC, for the 2018-19 academic year. She will be working on her dissertation which explores perfume in early modern England.

Sarah Stanley (MA ‘16), curator at the William King Museum of Arts in Abingdon, Virginia, co-curated an exhibition entitled Intertwined: Regional Textile Traditions with Betsy White, director of the museum. Featuring textiles created between 1850 and 1900, the exhibition is on view through July 7, 2019 in the William King Museum of Art’s Price-Strongwell Cultural Heritage Galleries.

Persephone Allen (MA ‘17), assistant museum educator for lectures and programs at The Frick Collection, has contributed a version of her Bard Graduate Center qualifying paper on “The Metallic Sphere as Mechanical Eye: Reflected Identities at the Bauhaus” to Dust & Data: Bauhaus Trajectories in One Hundred Years of Modernism edited by Ines Weizmann. This collection of essays is expected to be published in spring 2019.

Sasha Nixon (MA ‘18) will curate A View from the Jeweler’s Bench: Ancient Treasures, Contemporary Statements, an exhibition at Bard Graduate Center in spring 2019, as part of BGC’s 25th-Anniversary celebrations. Her exhibition proposal, which was part of her final qualifying paper, was chosen for presentation via a competitive selection process.

Pallavi Patke (MA ‘18) has joined the staff of the TheRealReal, where she is a copywriter, specializing in objects from home decor brands such as Herend (porcelain), Tiffany & Co. (steel and glass objects), Knoll (furniture and textiles), Herman Miller, and others.