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).

Jeffrey Collins presented a paper at the conference “Winckelmann et l’oeuvre d’art: Matériaux et types,” held at the Institut national d’histoire de l’art and the Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte in Paris from Nov. 26-27. His paper, “Winckelmann’s Walls: Making Sense of a Lost Art,” revisited the writings of the German scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-68) with a focus on ancient painting, rather than sculpture, asking how he integrated painting into innovative historical and aesthetic frameworks despite the total absence of Greek examples from before the period of Roman domination.

Ivan Gaskell participated in a retreat in Marfa, Texas, hosted by the Chinati Foundation and the Judd Foundation, and organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum to discuss its Panza Collection Initiative. At the symposium “Poverty of Sensibility: Art Education in the 21st Century” at the San Francisco Academy of Art, jointly organized with the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, he presented the keynote address. His article, “Concord Migrations,” has been published in Cultural Heritage, Ethics and Contemporary Migrations, edited by Cornelius Holtorf, Andreas Pantazatos, and Geoffrey Scarre (Routledge, 2018). Another article, “Joining the Club: A Tongan ‘akau in New England,” is appearing in Curatopia: Museums and the Future of Curatorship, edited by Philipp Schorch and Conal McCarthy (Manchester University Press, 2018). He also published the exhibition review, “Phyllida Barlow-tilt” (Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street), in West 86th online.

Meredith Linn recently presented two talks related to her research about Irish immigrants, illness, and injury in nineteenth-century New York City, one at Columbia University’s Center for Archaeology and another at the American Irish Historical Society.

Andrew Morrall delivered the keynote lecture,“‘To Adorn the Chambers of thy Memory.’ Material Culture and the Formation of Protestant Identity in the Early Modern Home,” in the symposium “Living with God: Materiality and the Lutheran Household in Denmark,” held at Aarhus University, Denmark, on December 6.

Paul Stirton gave a talk entitled “Metaphysics in Everyday Life” at the Center for Italian Modern Art in New York City, discussing the response to themes of Metaphysical painting in interwar European decorative arts. This event, on November 28, was related to the exhibition Metaphysical Masterpieces 1916-1920: Morandi, Sironi, and Carra.