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.

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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).


Christina Anderson is the Research Fellow in the Study of Collecting at the Ashmolean Museum at the University of Oxford. She specializes in the history of the decorative and fine arts, collecting, trade, and travel, with a particular emphasis on the intersection of art, commerce, and values in the early modern period. Her first book on the Flemish merchant Daniel Nijs and his brokering of the sale of the Gonzaga art collection to Charles I of England in 1627, titled The Flemish Merchant of Venice (Yale UP), was named one of Christie’s 11 best art books of 2015. Her current book project, on the Flemish merchant diaspora 1450–1650, explores the ways in which these merchants acted as cultural diffusers and wielded cultural influence through their patronage and collecting practices. She is a prolific editor of scholarly books—she is responsible for no less than 13 volumes that will be published between 2016 and 2019—on early modern merchants as collectors, on the cultural history of furniture, and on the cultural history of collecting. She holds a doctorate in Art History from the University of Oxford and has held a number of prestigious awards, most recently a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Before taking up her position in Oxford, she founded an art and antiques research consultancy in London. At Bard Graduate Center, Anderson will be completing her second book manuscript.