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).


My research and teaching explore European and American clothing and textile history from the eighteenth through the twentieth century. In addition to an appreciation for the importance of the material object and what it can tell us, my interests encompass the context in which clothing and textiles were made, sold, worn or used, experienced, and perceived. My work draws on social, cultural, art, economic, and political history, as well as literature. In 2012, I curated a Focus Gallery exhibition at Bard Graduate Center and contributed to and edited the accompanying catalogue. The exhibition and publication, Staging Fashion, 1880-1920: Jane Hading, Lily Elsie, Billie Burke, examine the phenomenon of actresses as internationally known fashion leaders at the turn-of-the-twentieth century and highlight the printed ephemera (cabinet cards, postcards, theatre magazines, and trade cards) that were instrumental in the creation of a public persona and that contributed to and reflected the rise of celebrity culture.

Selected Recent Publications

Staging Fashion, 1880-1920: Jane Hading, Lily Elsie, Billie Burke.
New York: Bard Graduate Center, 2012.

La Mode à la girafe: Fashion, Culture and Politics in Bourbon Restoration France.” Studies in the Decorative Arts Vol. XVII, No. 1 (Fall-Winter 2009-2010).

Editor, with Joe K. Kindig, Donna Ghelerter, Philip Zimmerman, and Elizabeth Meg Schaefer, Cora Ginsburg catalogues. 2017; 2016; 2015; 2014.

Wright’s Ferry Mansion. Marquand Books, 2005.

Selected Courses

509 History of European Textiles

539 Mode and Manners in the Eighteenth Century, 1675–1804

565 Twentieth-Century Fashion

691 Nineteenth-Century Fashion

833 Modern Textiles, 1850–1970

847 Fashion and Theatre, ca. 1780-1920

913 The Arts of Design in France, 1780-1815: Interiors, Objects, and Fashion between the Revolution and the First Empire

966 The Green Hat: Fashion in Word and Image