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).


Lynda Nead is the Pevsner Professor of History of Art at Birkbeck, University of London. She has published widely on the history of visual and material culture, with a particular focus on the representation of gender, the city and the history of British art and culture. Her books include The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (Routledge, 1992; forthcoming as a Routledge Classic in 2024); Victorian Babylon: People, Streets and Images in Nineteenth-Century London (Yale University Press, 2000); The Haunted Gallery: Film, Photography, Cinema c. 1900 (Yale UP, 2008); The Tiger in the Smoke: Art and Culture in Post-War Britain (Yale UP, 2018). She is currently completing a book titled British Blonde: Women, Desire and the Image in Post-War Britain; material from this project will be presented at the Paul Mellon Biennial Lecture Series at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London in 2023 and also at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven. Professor Nead has held several advisory positions in museums and galleries and has been on the research advisory panels at Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Museum of London. She was a trustee of the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2016 to 2022 and is currently a trustee of the Campaign for the Arts. She is a fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Historical Society, the Academia Europea and the Association for Art History. Her current research continues to explore intermedial approaches to cultural history, bringing together film, photography, the visual arts, and material culture in interdisciplinary studies.