Susan Weber

Susan Weber was born in New York. She received her A.B. degree (1977) from Barnard College-Columbia University, New York City, her M.A. (1990) from The Cooper-Hewitt Museum/Parsons School of Design, New York City, and her Ph.D. (1998) from the Royal College of Art, London.

Weber founded the Bard Graduate Center: Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, a two-year graduate program leading to a master’s degree in the decorative arts, in 1991. It is the only program in the United States that studies the decorative arts of all cultures. In 1998 the Bard Graduate Center (BGC) introduced a doctoral program in the decorative arts, the first of its kind in this country. Weber also is the Publisher of Source: Notes in the History of Art, a quarterly journal devoted to all aspects of art history and archaeology.

Before founding the Bard Graduate Center, Weber was Executive Director of The Open Society Fund, Inc., a private foundation that supports internationally the advancement of freedom of expression and cultural exchange through grants to individuals and associations. She also was Associate Producer of two films: In Search of Rothko, a 28-minute film on the life and work of the painter Mark Rothko, and The Big Picture, a 58-minute film on the New York School of Art, shown as part of the New York State exhibition New York: The State of Art. She also was Assistant Director of this exhibition.

Susan Weber serves as a Trustee of Bard College. She is a member of the Chairman's Council of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Visiting Committee of the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts department and the Watson Library. In addition, she is a member of the Architecture and Design Acquisitions Committee of The Museum of Modern Art, is on the Applied Art Committee of the American Association of Museums, and is a member of the Furniture History Society and the International Council of Museums.

Weber is the author of The Secular Furniture of E.W. Godwin and editor and contributing author of the catalogue E. W. Godwin: Aesthetic Movement Architect and Designer. The catalogue was the result of the exhibition of the same name curated by Weber and presented at the Bard Graduate Center in 1999–2000. She is the co-author of Thomas Jeckyll: Architect and Designer, 1827–1881, and curator of the corresponding exhibition presented at the Bard Graduate Center in 2003. She is the co-editor and contributing author of Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry, which accompanied the fall 2004 exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center, which she co-curated. In 2006 she was the curator and editor of the exhibition and catalogue accompanying James “Athenian” Stuart, 1713–1788: The Rediscovery of Antiquity. Currently she is working on the exhibition and catalogue for The American Circus, scheduled for 2012, and William Kent, scheduled for 2013.

She is the recipient of many awards, most recently including an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Institute of British Architects (2011), an Honorary Senior Research Fellowship from the Victoria and Albert Museum (2010), Soane Foundation Honors from Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation (2010), an award from the Università di Roma for her contributions to the cultural world through the exhibition Castellani and Italian Archaeological Jewelry (2004), the Philip C. Johnson Award of the Society of Architectural Historians (2005), the Exhibition and Catalogue Award from The Victorian Society in America, Metropolitan Chapter (2004), the Henry Russell Hitchcock Book Award from the Victorian Society in America (2004), the AFA Cultural Leadership Award (2003), the Bezalel Educator in the Arts Award (2002), the George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award (2000), the Henry-Russell Hitchcock Award from The Victorian Society in America (2000), the Philip C. Johnson Award of the Society of Architectural Historians (2000), the Spirit of the City Award from the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine (1999), the Woman of Achievement Award from Barnard College (1997), and the National Arts Club Gold Medal Award (1997).