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).

Mónica Domínguez Torres is Associate Professor at the Department of Art History of the University of Delaware, with a joint appointment in Latin American and Iberian Studies. She specializes in the arts of the early modern Iberian World, with particular interest in cross-cultural exchanges between Spain and the Americas during the period 1500–1700. Her book Military Ethos and Visual Culture in Post-Conquest Mexico (Ashgate, 2013) investigates the significance of military images and symbols in sixteenth-century Mexico, showing how certain martial notions and symbols created cultural bridges between Mesoamericans and Europeans. She also published several essays on the production, regulation, and consumption of indigenous heraldry in Mexico and Peru. During her stay at Bard Graduate Center, she will be working towards completing her new book-length project, Pearls for the Crown: European Courtly Art and the Atlantic Pearl Trade, 1498–1728, which examines the cultural and political currency that pearls had in the early modern period. The book explores a selection of images and collectibles related to the Atlantic pearl industry in relation to the interplay between materiality, labor, and consumption that shaped artistic production in early modern Europe. Specifically, it discusses the discourses these pieces articulated about imperial expansion, providential wealth, and human mastery over nature, notions of crucial importance in courtly circles linked to the Spanish Crown.