Bard Graduate Center

Bard Graduate Center Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture. Bard Graduate Center is a graduate research institute in New York City.

Our MA and PhD degree programs, Gallery exhibitions, research initiatives, and public programs explore new ways of thinking about decorative arts, design history, and material culture. At Bard Graduate Center, we study the human past through its material traces. We study objects—from those created for obvious aesthetic value to the ordinary things that are part of everyday life. Learning is what B

ard Graduate Center is all about. Our accomplished faculty inspire students to strive for excellence, knowing that this will prepare them for the intellectual and professional rigors of careers in academia, in museums, and in the private sector. This high standard is equally the hallmark of the Gallery’s acclaimed exhibitions and related public programs. The Center’s campus comprises a state-of-the-art academic programs building at 38 West 86th Street and Gallery at 18 West 86th Street. Founded by Dr. Susan Weber in 1993, Bard Graduate Center is an academic unit of Bard College through which it is accredited and a member of the Association of Research Institutes in Art History (ARIAH).

Meet the 2026 MA graduates🎓Debaleena Bagchi studies the visual and material culture of colonial South Asia across the lo...
06/25/2026

Meet the 2026 MA graduates🎓

Debaleena Bagchi studies the visual and material culture of colonial South Asia across the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She is particularly interested in tracing the voluntary and involuntary movement of objects, knowledge, and people through the colonial networks that connect Europe, South Asia, and the Indian Ocean world. Her interdisciplinary educational background spans studio arts, ceramics, English literature, visual studies, and art history. Passionate about object-centered research and making the histories of art and material culture accessible, she has worked across museums and non-profit organizations as a researcher, graphic designer, and educator.

A huge congratulations to Debaleena!

Drew Thompson, Bard Graduate Center Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Black Studies and Andrew W. Mellon Senior ...
06/22/2026

Drew Thompson, Bard Graduate Center Associate Professor of Visual Culture and Black Studies and Andrew W. Mellon Senior Fellow in the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, curated a selection of photographs including some recent acquisitions on view now through early fall in Photographs from the Permanent Collection in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery (gallery 850) in the Met. As an organizing exhibition theme, he considers the role of blackness as form and subject matter in histories of photography. The photographs span the 19th and 20th centuries and were taken in locations as diverse as Madagascar, South Africa, Brazil, and the US. According to Thompson, “The collection rotation offered the chance to work closely with the Met's extensive photographic collections to further develop my curatorial practice. I worked with a range of administrative departments, including curatorial, conservation, and editorial, further enriching my understanding of photography as a medium of representation and artform. I am excited to take this experience to future curatorial and writing projects and to integrate these experiences into my teaching at BGC.” Congratulations Drew!

Design history isn't just studied at Bard Graduate Center — it's also crafted.A favorite from the BGC Archives, this bea...
06/08/2026

Design history isn't just studied at Bard Graduate Center — it's also crafted.

A favorite from the BGC Archives, this beautiful program for the 2022 Qualifying Paper Symposium was designed by Jocelyn Lau in collaboration with graduating students. Letterpress-printed, accordion-folded, and assembled by hand, it won a 2022 AIGA Year in Design Award for Corporate Communications. As one AIGA juror put it: "A call back to print glory days!... This is ephemera I'd collect."

Most importantly, it is a great example of the kind of collaboration with students that brings so much to cultural life at BGC. Jocelyn reflects that students "bring such a distinct perspective to the project, which helps tie the design directly to the core identity of the graduating class."

Printed at Center for Book Arts and Shapco Printing, designed by Jocelyn Lau with art direction from Laura Grey, editorial work by Keith Condon, Amy Estes, and Kat Lanza.

Find the original program in the BGC Archives!

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds, the first major U.S. exhibition devoted to the vi...
06/05/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds, the first major U.S. exhibition devoted to the visionary architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc! Your enthusiasm for his extraordinary work — from the soaring restorations of Notre-Dame de Paris to his breathtaking geological sketches — made this exhibition unforgettable. Here's to a master who taught us that drawing is a way of thinking, and that the past is always alive in the present. We're so grateful to have shared this moment with you.

Organized by Bard Graduate Center in partnership with Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, a department of the French Ministry of Culture.

Photography by Fresco Arts Team.

Congratulations to the MA '26 class! 🎓 Last week at the Qualifying Paper Symposium, 22 scholars presented original resea...
05/26/2026

Congratulations to the MA '26 class! 🎓 Last week at the Qualifying Paper Symposium, 22 scholars presented original research spanning ancient Greek funerary stelae, Baile Folklórico costumes, heritage quilts, Appalachian log cabins, luxury fashion craft, prosthetics for soldiers and screen, and the politics of Indigenous collaboration in museums — just to name a few. The depth, range, and rigor on display reminded us exactly why this work matters. We are so proud of every one of you!

Photography by Yann Chashanovski.

FINAL DAYS! Don't miss your last chance to experience Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds at Bard Graduate Center Gallery. Onl...
05/21/2026

FINAL DAYS! Don't miss your last chance to experience Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds at Bard Graduate Center Gallery. Only on view through May 24.

Tickets 🔗 in bio.

Organized by Bard Graduate Center in partnership withMédiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, a department of the French Ministry of Culture.

Photo by Da Ping Luo.

This spring, BGC students had the opportunity to design and print personalized bookplates during Materials Day workshops...
05/20/2026

This spring, BGC students had the opportunity to design and print personalized bookplates during Materials Day workshops on ex libris printmaking.

A new display in the library showcases the students’ unique bookplates alongside those from the library’s collections, woodblocks and a lithographic stone from the Study Collection, books related to ex libris and printing, as well as printmaking tools and materials with an explanation of different techniques.

The phrase “ex libris” (Latin for “from the books/library of”) commonly appears on bookplates – a printed or decorative label pasted into a book, usually on the front endpaper, to indicate ownership – and has therefore become a synonymous term. With historical roots in similar practices of signaling book ownership (e.g. portraits, heraldry, marginalia), an ex libris often features a personalized motif, such as a motto, crest, coat-of-arms, or other unique design.

Only 5 days left! Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds is closing soon — don't miss your chance to experience the drawings that...
05/19/2026

Only 5 days left! Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds is closing soon — don't miss your chance to experience the drawings that changed what architectural imagination and reconstruction could accomplish.

On view through May 24 only.

Organized by Bard Graduate Center in partnership with Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, a department of the French Ministry of Culture.

Installation photography by © Bruce M White.

05/15/2026

BGC alum Antonia Anagnostopoulos (MA '24) is hand-crafting a fustanella at the Royal Ontario Museum — and she's doing it the way it's always been done, by studying the real thing!

From : "The Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship was established in 1979 to honour the work and memory of Veronika Gervers, a pioneering textiles and dress scholar. While a curator at ROM – from 1968 until her untimely death in 1979 – Veronika carried out groundbreaking research in Eastern European dress history and assisted in building the worldclass textiles collection at the heart of so many ROM exhibitions.

The 2025-2026 fellowship recipient, Antonia Anagnostopoulos has been studying historic garments held in ROM collections in order to herself create a fustanella for her project entitled the Arcadian Lass.

A note from Antonia: in my excitement to film this video, I misspoke! The magnifying device that I use is called a linen tester or a thread counter. Also the Ottoman 8-pointed star would be more accurately described as an 8-pointed swirl."

Video courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum.

Before it's gone — lose yourself in the visionary drawings of Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds, on view through May 24.Bard...
05/14/2026

Before it's gone — lose yourself in the visionary drawings of Viollet-le-Duc Drawing Worlds, on view through May 24.

Bard Graduate Center Gallery
18 West 86th St., NYC

Organized by Bard Graduate Center in partnership with Médiathèque du patrimoine et de la photographie, a department of the French Ministry of Culture.

Image credit: Maurice Ouradou, Painted decor of Saint-Charles chapel. Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, Saint-Joseph chapel, preparatory drawing for Peintures murales des chapelles de Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris: Morel, 1870), plates 4 and 5, ca. 1870. Drawing on tracing paper in ink and watercolor, with white gouache and gold highlights, mounted on card stock. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, AR0 2013 10 3.

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38 W 86th Street
New York, NY
10024

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Tuesday 11am - 5pm
Wednesday 11am - 8pm
Thursday 11am - 8pm
Friday 11am - 5pm
Saturday 11am - 5pm
Sunday 11am - 5pm

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