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).

Meredith Chilton is a specialist in eighteenth-century European porcelain, dining, and social culture. She first joined Toronto’s Gardiner Museum in 1983, working with the team responsible for opening the museum. She subsequently became the museum’s curator, a role she retained for over twenty years.

In 2004, Chilton left the museum to work on Fired by Passion: Vienna Baroque Porcelain of Claudius Innocentius Du Paquier, a three-volume monograph for the Melinda and Paul Sullivan Foundation. She was principal contributor to Daily Pleasures: French Ceramics from the MaryLou Boone Collection. Chilton returned to the Gardiner Museum as its chief curator between 2015 and 2017, leading a major renovation and re-installation of the European porcelain gallery.

During her career, Chilton curated more than 20 exhibitions and published approximately 50 articles and books, including her award-winning Harlequin Unmasked: The Commedia dell’Arte and Porcelain Sculpture. She was honored by the Gardiner Museum Volunteers, who named the Meredith Chilton Commedia dell’Arte Gallery in perpetuity at the museum.

Chilton was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2017 and became curator emerita at the Gardiner Museum following her retirement.