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 current research and publications are mostly concentrated in two areas: architecture and design in Britain and in Central Europe (primarily Hungary) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I have a particular interest in graphic design, interiors, and print culture, although my recent work has been concerned with public monuments and cultural transfer or emigration. My approach to this body of material is largely concerned with the relationship between contemporary theoretical and critical writings and the actual objects themselves. This dialectical relationship between texts and things lies behind the selected writings of the English architect-designer E.W. Godwin, which I edited with Juliet Kinchin (2005), and various articles and essays on Hungarian designers, such as Károly Kós, Lajos Kozma, and Laszlo Peri.

Selected Recent Publications

Author, with Juliet Kinchin, “Is Mr Ruskin Living Too Long?”: Selected Writings of E.W. Godwin on Victorian Architecture, Design and Culture. Dorchester: White Cockade Publishing, 2005.

“Commanditaires et luttes de classe dans la Florence du XIVe siècle: Frederick Antal et Florence et ses peintres.” In Anthologie de l’histoire de l’art sociale de l’art. Paris: INHA, 2015.

“Hungarian Visual Culture in the First World War.” Austrian Studies No. 21 (2013): 182-200.

“Double Emigres.” In Transfer-Interdisciplinär!, edited by E. Gantner. Peter Lang, 2013.

“The Vienna School in Hungary.” Journal of Art Historiography No. 8. June 2013.

“Public Sculpture in Cluj/Kolozsvár: Identity, Space and Politics.” In Heritage, Ideology and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by M. Rampley. Boydell Press, 2012.

“Frederick Antal and Laszlo Peri: Art, Scholarship and Social Purpose,” Visual Culture in Britain. (Summer 2012).

“American Circus Posters.” In The American Circus, edited by M. Wittman and S. Weber. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012.

“The Cult of Velazquez” and “The Spanish Civil War.” In The Discovery of Spain, ex. cat. Edinburgh: National Galleries of Scotland, 2009.

Selected Courses

573 Graphic Design in Europe, 1890-1945

732 Design Reform in Britain: From Pugin to Mackintosh

772 The Aesthetic Movement: Designing Modernity, 1865–1905

801 Other Europes: Design and Architecture in Central Europe, 1880–1956

924 Gothic Visions: From the Visigoths to Post-Punk