The MA in Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture at Bard Graduate Center offers students access to some of the world's most vibrant museum collections, giving students the chance to examine a variety of significant global objects.

School: Bard Graduate Center
Course: MA in Decorative Arts, Design History and Material Culture
Location: New York City, USA
Course dates: August 2025 to May 2027
Application deadline: 6 January 2025

At Bard Graduate Center, we study the human past and present through their material expressions, focusing on objects and other material forms.

We apply equal intellectual rigour to our acclaimed exhibitions, award-winning catalogues and scholarly publications and innovative public programmes.

Our New York City location, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, gives our students access to some of the world’s richest museum collections within a few blocks’ walk. Affiliations with institutions and their curators, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Arts and Design, enrich and expand our curriculum, creating a vital “Cultural Sciences Campus.”

Our Study Collection – 4,000 objects strong and growing, enables students to examine a variety of objects from around the world at close range.

You will find our alumni working in museums, auction houses and universities around the world, including the Met, Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Arts and Design, New-York Historical Society, the Jewish Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Cooper Hewitt, Sotheby’s, Phillips, Gurr Johns, Parsons School of Design, Fashion Institute of Technology, Queens University and more.

Find out more about the course and apply ›

Top image: photo by Da Ping Luo.

Dezeen Courses

Dezeen Courses is a service from Dezeen that provides details of architecture, interiors and design courses around the world. Click here for more information.