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).

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Herzog August Bibliothek

In fall 2018, I completed a research fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB) in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, a collection of printed books and manuscripts founded in 1570. The library is situated in a small, well-preserved town, whose streets and buildings, dating from the early modern period, provided an inspiring backdrop for research. With funding from the HAB and Bard Graduate Center, and a travel award from the American Friends of the HAB, I spent two months conducting research for my dissertation, Taking Refuge in Print: Exiled Protestant Engravers from the Southern Netherlands in Cologne, 1585-1610. I investigate an understudied group of Netherlandish Protestant engravers who emigrated to Cologne in the late sixteenth century and transformed the print culture in their adopted city, collaborating with German Catholic publishers, before being banished around 1610. The HAB holds the highest concentration of printed books by the engraver-author Matthias Quad, whose work is my primary focus. I spent most of my time looking at his atlases and travel guidebooks, and those of his contemporaries, in order to understand his contributions to the dissemination of knowledge of global and local geography. An object of particular interest was Quad’s world atlas from 1600, which was the first to include original text composed in German. This aspect of my research brings printed maps into connection with more traditional subject matter and formats.

— Julia Lillie, doctoral candidate