About
Upcoming Exhibitions
BGC Gallery will resume its exhibition programming this September with the return of Sèvres Extraordinaire! Sculpture from 1740 until Today, originally slated for fall 2024.
Bard Graduate Center is an advanced graduate research institute in New York City dedicated to the cultural histories of the material world. Our MA and PhD degree programs, Gallery exhibitions, research initiatives, scholarly publications and public programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture.

About
28th Annual Iris Foundation Awards
Honoring Irene Roosevelt Aitken, Dr. Julius Bryant, Dr. Meredith Martin, and Katherine Purcell
Events
Wednesdays @ BGC
Join us this spring for weekly programming!





About

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).


Another academic year has closed and Bard Graduate Center once again celebrates the outstanding achievements of our latest graduates—twelve master’s degree students who presented their qualifying papers and two doctoral candidates who successfully completed their dissertations. We wish them success as they embark on the next phase of their careers.

Doctor of Philosophy in Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture
The title of the doctoral dissertation is listed for each student.

MICHELLE JACKSON-BECKETT
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania / BA, Saint Joseph’s University; MA, Parsons School of Design/Cooper Hewitt
“Vienna’s Other Modernism: Design and Dwelling, 1918–1938”
Lee B. Anderson Memorial Foundation Dean’s Prize

REBECCA JUMPER MATHESON
New York, New York / BA, Rice University; MA, Fashion Institute of Technology; JD, University of Texas School of Law
“American Artisans: William and Elizabeth Phelps, and Phelps Associates”
CINOA Award for Outstanding Dissertation

Master of Arts in Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture
The title of the master’s qualifying paper is listed for each student.

mary adeogun
Bear, Delaware / BA, Princeton University
“a satin scarf, and its many uses”
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts Award

BRIDGET BARTAL
Williams Bay, Wisconsin / BA, Lawrence University
“(Mis)fitting Taliesin: The Women of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin Fellowship”

GRACE CAMILLE GAN BILLINGSLEA

Seattle, Washington / BA, New York University
“Fashioning Equality, Independence & Freedom for Women in the Nineteenth Century: Madame Demorest’s Business Empire”

ARIANA BISHOP

Andover, Massachusetts / BS, University of Delaware
“Loud Jewelry, Loose Women: Sex, Power, and Adornment in Storyville, New Orleans, 1880-1920”

JULIA MARIE CARABATSOS

North Easton, Massachusetts / BA, Yale University
“‘What a motley Creature I was become’: Hester Piozzi’s ‘Demi-Naturalization’ Materialized”
Clive Wainwright Award

MARION DEMARIS LARGUIER COX

Nashville, Tennessee / BS, Skidmore College
“Totem and Anti-Totem: Dual Signification and the Contentious History of Richmond’s Robert E. Lee Monument”
Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts Award

ELLEN ENDERLE

Stuart, Florida / BA, Columbia University
“Adorned in Gold: Religion, Personal Display, and Women’s Agency in Ancient Macedonia”

KATHERINE LANZA

Chatham, Massachusetts / BA, Pratt Institute
“Timeless Dispositions: Devotional Objects as Non-Mimetic Portraits”

KRISTIN SUE MCCOOL

East Lansing, Michigan / BA, Michigan State University
“Challenging the Status Quo: Unsettling Dominant Narratives in MoMA’s Gallery 412”

LAURA MOGULESCU
Brooklyn, New York / BA, Brown University; MSW, Hunter College
“The Foreign-born Mother and the Materiality of Americanization: Photography and the Creation and Documentation of Americanization by the Educational Committee for Non-English Speaking Women”
Heather Jane McCormick Prize

SAMUEL EDMOND SNODGRASS
Springfield, Missouri / BFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
“‘May I be deaf at the Opera’: Dress and Voice of Macaroni and Castrati”

PIM-ORN SUPAVARASUWAT

Bangkok, Thailand / BA, New York University
“‘One Sheds One’s Sickness in Books’: Illness, Uncertainty, and the Book as Creative Intervention”
Clive Wainwright Award