Contact Information (press inquiries only) The New York Public Library Public Relations Office 188 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 phone: 212.592.7700 fax: 212.592.7729 
|
The New York Public Library Calendar
of Exhibitions
Spring 2003 As of January 2003 Humanities and Social Sciences Library New York Eats Out -- Extended through July 12, 2003 Poetry of Sight: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) -- Through May 10, 2003 The Charles Addams Mother Goose -- February 7 - June 28, 2003 Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, 1653-2003 -- February 28 -June 14, 2003 Baseball at The New York Public Library -- March 25 - May 3, 2003 Passion’s Discipline: The History of the Sonnet in the British Isles and America -- May 2 - August 2, 2003 The Declaration of Independence -- June 27 - August 2, 2003 Favorite Haunts: Drawings by Charles Addams -- September 12, 2003 - January 31, 2004 Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825 -- October 3, 2003 - January 31, 2004 FSA and WPA in the Tri-State Area -- October 17, 2003 - January 17, 2004 Ninety from the Nineties: A Decade of Printing -- November 7, 2003 - May 28, 2004 A Literary Christmas Miscellany from the Berg Collection -- December 2, 2003 - January 3, 2004 Cities in the Americas: A Celebration of the Phelps Stokes Collection -- February 13 - May 29, 2004 Rose Adler and Pierre Legrain: Bookbindings for Jacques Doucet -- February 27 - June 12, 2004 Jill Kupin Rose Gallery -- Permanent
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Vaslav Nijinsky: Creating a New Artistic Era -- February 12 - May 3, 2003 Original Cast Recordings -- March 6 - June 7, 2003 Shadow Puppetry -- June - September 2003 World Music in New York -- June - October 2003 Prokofiev and His Contemporaries: The Impact of Soviet Culture -- October 2003 - January 2004
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture The Art of African Women: Empowering Traditions -- Through March 30, 2003 Harlem Is ... -- Through August 2003
Science, Industry and Business Library Seeking the Secret of Life: The DNA Story in New
York -- February 24 through August 29, 2003
Humanities and
Social Sciences Library New York
Eats Out
Restaurants like Baum’s Four Seasons and La Fonda del Sol mark the beginning of the modern era of fine dining in New York, and they have a spiritual connection to Windows on the World, which is given special attention as a grand experiment in urban dining and as a profound historic loss in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. New York Eats Out also focuses on the popular foods and informal dining styles that have defined New York for generations, and have made it unique among American cities. These include oyster bars, hot-dog and pretzel carts, steak houses, and automats. The greatness of New York as a dining city lies in the quality and the diversity of its food, from the knishes and Italian ices sold for next to nothing, to the most refined, inventive reinterpretations of haute cuisine at the four-star restaurants. New York Eats Out embraces the entire range. Image: Walter Dorwin Teague. Menu for Le
Banquet Annuel de la Chambre de Commerce Française de New York. February
25, 1927. Buttolph Menu Collection, General Research Division, NYPL. Poetry
of Sight: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) Commemorating the centenary of James McNeill Whistler's death, this exhibition will present over 130 of Whistler's etchings, drypoints, and lithographs from the Library's Print Collection. Famed painter, draughtsman, and designer, Whistler was also a devoted printmaker. His best-known prints are those he published in his French, Thames, and Venice sets, all of which will be on view, along with selections from his drypoint portraits and late experiments with lithography. Equally well known for his combative personality and acerbic wit, Whistler was a prominent 19th-century personality on both sides of the Atlantic, whose altercations with contemporaries such as patron Frederick Leyland, critic John Ruskin, and brother-in-law Francis Seymour Haden were highly publicized. Alternately praised and criticized by the press, for both his behavior and his art, Whistler worked hard to control his reputation through his writings. The exhibition will include such publications as The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, as well as selections from his spirited correspondence with his American agent, Edward G. Kennedy. Image: James, McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903).
Early Portrait of Whistler.
Etching, only state, 1857-58. S. P. Avery Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach
Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library. The
Charles Addams Mother Goose In conjunction with the reprinting of The Charles Addams Mother Goose, the Library is pleased to present Addams’s singular interpretation of these classic nursery rhymes. The Charles Addams Mother Goose is part of an ongoing,
rotating selection of drawings by Charles Addams, featuring many that appeared
in The New Yorker. Drawings by Charles Addams were donated to the Library
by The Lady Colyton and Marilyn Addams. Their care and exhibition are supported
by an endowment established through a gift from The Lady Colyton. Izaak
Walton's The Compleat Angler, 1653-2003
Image: Izaak Walton & Charles Cotton. The
Complete Angler. 2 vols. London: [Charles Wittingham
for] William Pickering, 1836. Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Baseball
at The New York Public Library The Library's collections document the national pastime from its
origins, in books, photographs, prints, clippings, drawings, scrapbooks, and
other memorabilia. The Library's rare Honus Wagner baseball card will be on
view. The legendary card was distributed with Sweet Caporal cigarettes, ca.
1910, until Wagner had it pulled from circulation. Speculation as to why abounded
until his granddaughter set the record straight in 1992: "[H]e always had a
wad of chewbacca in his mouth, and he wasn't against tobacco at all. His concern
was he didn't want children to have to buy tobacco in order to get his card....
That's the fact behind it. It wasn't that he didn't get paid for it, or that
he was against tobacco, he just didn't want children to have to buy tobacco
at a young age in order to get his cards." The card and scrapbook are part of
the Goulston Collection, housed in the Library's George Arents Collection on
Tobacco. Passion’s
Discipline: The History of the Sonnet in the British Isles and America
The exhibition considers the development of the sonnet, the poetic
form which has provided writers with a vehicle for passionate thought and feeling
on love, religion, politics, and a rich variety of other topics since its development
in 13th-century Italy. The exhibition illustrates how a poem's intensity is
enhanced and enriched by the discipline of confining it in a formal structure.
Materials on view, drawn primarily from the Library’s Henry W. and Albert
A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, include a 1576 edition
of Dante, and a lavishly illuminated 15th-century Petrarch manuscript, both
of which show the origin and early development of the sonnet form. Other rare
and important items which illustrate high points of poetic expression through
the sonnet or important aspects of its development include the 1605 Westmoreland
Manuscript, the most authoritative manuscript of much of John Donne's poetry,
including the Holy Sonnets; and manuscripts by Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats,
Tennyson, Millay, Cummings, Auden, and Kerouac. Among the many other authors
represented are John Milton, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
W. B. Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, Emma Lazarus, Richard Wilbur, and Elizabeth Bishop.
The
Declaration of Independence
Image: Declaration
of Independence. Philadelphia: John Dunlap, July 4-5,
1776. Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Favorite
Haunts: Drawings by Charles Addams The Library's ongoing exhibition of the work of New Yorker
cartoonist Charles Addams continues with a selection of his darkly humorous
drawings. (See The Charles Addams Mother Goose listing for Charles Addams
credits.) Russia
Engages the World, 1453-1825
A small selection of objects from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Schaffer Family Collection of the firm A La Vieille Russie, and the American Numismatic Society will complement works on paper from the Library's collections; a painting of Abraham and Isaac from the workshop of Rembrandt will also be on loan from the Museum of Art and Archaeology, University of Missouri-Columbia. The Europeanized, educated, and outward-looking “new” Russia of Peter the Great (r. 1689-1725) is depicted in magnificent and extremely rare engravings of the new capital of St. Petersburg. Catherine the Great’s (r. 1762-96) dynamic and enlightened reign is reflected in both the writings of an indigenous Russian legal, scholarly, and literary community, as well as her own legislative and artistic works. Also included is visual documentation of cultures and peoples encountered by Russian explorers during her reign and in the early years of the 19th century. A fully illustrated companion volume with essays by the curators and by scholars who are also consultants to the exhibition will be published by Harvard University Press. The Library’s programming in conjunction with the exhibition will include a symposium, a lecture series, a film series, and a website. This exhibition coincides with the worldwide commemoration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of St. Petersburg in 1703. Image: Hand-colored depiction of Peter the
Great in: Cornelius Cruys, Nieuw pas-kaart boek
[A New Book of Charts] (Amsterdam, [1703-1704]). Map Division, The New York
Public Library. FSA
and WPA in the Tri-State Area (working title) The Great Depression of the 1930s affected the life of every American, including writers, musicians, actors, and artists, and in 1935 a portion of the funding for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was designated for the aid of these unemployed professionals. This unprecedented largesse from the federal government employed over 250 artists, with 80 in the New York workshop alone. The artists, including Mabel Dwight, Louis Lozowick, Nan Lurie, and Raphael Soyer, were given a place to work and a salary, leaving them free to create, unfettered by financial concerns. In return, the artists created 20 to 25 copies of each print, which were then distributed to schools, libraries, museums, and other institutions around the country. In 1943, as the program ended and the New York workshop was closed, approximately 1,200 prints were deposited with the Print Collection of The New York Public Library. This exhibition is drawn exclusively from that 1943 allocation, and celebrates that unique relationship between the government and the arts. The Farm Security Administration (FSA), well known for documenting
America's westward development, is little known for its work in the east, particularly
in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Initially the government project documented
the Resettlement Administration's distribution of cash loans to farmers and
its construction of planned communities, but later broadened its focus to include
migratory laborers in the Midwest and West and sharecroppers in the South. Under
the Office of War Information, the agenda shifted to themes of patriotism and
war production. The photographs in this exhibition were taken in New York, New
Jersey, and Connecticut and are culled from the approximately 40,000 images
transferred to the Wallach Division's Photography Collection from the Mid-Manhattan
Library's Picture Collection. The photographs were taken during the 1930s and
40s by Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Walker Evans, and Russell Lee, among
other photographers. Ninety
from the Nineties: A Decade of Printing Ninety from the Nineties is part of a tradition at The New York Public Library that began in 1968 with Sixty from the Sixties: An Exhibition of Distinctive Editions. Once every ten years since then the Library has mounted an exhibition of books acquired by the Rare Books Division during the preceding decade. These exhibitions featured books, pamphlets, broadsides, and printed ephemera from printers at work in the Americas, Great Britain, and Europe. As part of its mission, the Rare Books Division in the Humanities
and Social Sciences Library collects representative works from printers engaged
in the craft of letterpress printing. The purpose of Ninety from the Nineties:
A Decade of Printing will be twofold. It will highlight selected works that
were added to the collection over the past decade and it will illustrate current
trends among the artists and craftsmen engaged in the book arts. A
Literary Christmas Miscellany from the Berg Collection This year’s Christmas display includes a variety of literary
materials from the Library’s Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of
English and American Literature. Featured are Charles Dickens's prompt copy
of A Christmas Carol, from which he gave his public readings; books with
Christmas themes by T. S. Eliot and Edmund Wilson; and Christmas greetings by
James Joyce, Sean O'Casey, E. E. Cummings, and Maurice Sendak. Cities
in the Americas: A Celebration of The Phelps Stokes Collection On the American continent, the 19th century was witness to the rapid expansion of boundaries, the growth of existing cities, and the establishment of new urban centers, all of it copiously recorded by the growing numbers of printmakers active in the United States and its territories. Nineteenth-century American printmakers, frequently using the still new technique of lithography, transformed earlier topographical traditions into a vehicle for recording and promoting the new country’s development. The exhibition will include examples of eighteenth-century views of America’s founding cities, as well as such dramatic nineteenth-century formats as the bird's-eye view. The Phelps Stokes Collection of American Historical Prints, donated
to the Library by I. N. Phelps Stokes in 1930, is rich in city and town views
that trace the urbanization of, in particular, the North American continent.
Cities in the Americas will draw from this resource of more than 800
prints and drawings, chronicling the growth and development of the American
urban landscape, as well as the young nation’s burgeoning printmaking
industry. Rose
Adler and Pierre Legrain: Bookbindings for Jacques Doucet French bookbinders led the world in their craft in the earlier part of the 20th century, especially from the 20s to the 50s, and fostered the designer bookbinder movement that took such firm root in several other countries. Two of the most influential were Rose Adler and Pierre Legrain, who between them created some 800 bindings for Jacques Doucet, the French bibliophile couturier, collector, and philanthropist. A highly select group of 34 Art Deco bindings, drawn primarily from the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet in Paris, with two rare examples from The New York Public Library's Spencer Collection, will be featured in the exhibition. The majority of these bindings have never been exhibited before. A native of Paris, Rose Adler (1890-1959) was a founding member of the Société de la Reliure Originale, and specialized in the application of gold tooling. Before turning to bindings, however, she designed clothing, furniture, and jewelry. A highlight of Adler's rich and colorful designs is a binding with jade encrustations. An early influence on Adler's work, Pierre Legrain (1888-1929) is credited with revolutionizing bookbinding design in France. Legrain, who had studied theater design and applied art, serendipitously came to design bookbindings. Leaving the French Army in 1916 with a medical discharge, the unemployed Legrain turned to Doucet for whom he had designed dresses and jewelry before the war. Doucet assigned him the task of designing bindings for the contents of his library. Although he knew nothing about bookbinding, Legrain executed a series of trailblazing designs, which changed the face of designer bookbinding in Europe in a mere dozen years. An unusual metal binding will be among the splendid Legrain bindings on display. The Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, a principal
institution for the study of French arts and letters, collects French literature
from Baudelaire to contemporary writers. Its collections also contain the archives
of writers including Apollinaire, Aragon, Baudelaire, Breton, Desnos, Eluard,
Gide, Mallarmé, Malraux, Mauriac, Rimbaud, Tzara, Valéry, and
Verlaine. Jill
Kupin Rose Gallery This permanent exhibition consists of large wall panels with photographs,
text, objects, and videos illustrating the history and the vast array of collections,
services, and users of The New York Public Library’s Branch and Research
Libraries. The Jill Kupin Rose Gallery was created in 1998 by former New York
Public Library Chairman Marshall Rose in memory of his late wife, Jill Kupin
Rose. The New York
Public Library for the Performing Arts Vaslav
Nijinsky: Creating a New Artistic Era
The exhibition includes 250 items from the Library’s dance, theater, and music holdings. Particularly revealing is Nijinsky's diary. Among other treasures, the exhibition features original costume designs by Robert Edmond Jones for Till Eulenspiegel, the score of the seminal Le Sacre du Printemps, composed by Stravinsky, with the composer’s markings; and a Cubist-inspired mask drawn by Nijinsky in 1922. Performance and personal photographs from among the 2,000 held by the Library are also shown. Posters and other promotional artifacts place his performances, tours, and choreography in cultural and historical context. Video documentation of reconstructions of his L’Après-midi d'un Faune, Sacre du Printemps, and Jeux is shown in the gallery. A series of related free public programs presented in the Library’s Bruno Walter Auditorium focuses on the time in which Nijinsky worked, the influence of his work on other artists, and his many innovative collaborators, among them, Leon Bakst, Jean Cocteau, Natalia Gontcharova, Robert Edmond Jones, Ida Rubinstein, and Igor Stravinsky. Image: Vaslav Nijinsky. Photo by A. Bert. Jerome
Robbins Dance Division, NYPL. Original
Cast Recordings The exhibition illuminates the history, art, and craft of original cast recordings, as documented in the collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The start of the original cast recording era is marked by the 1943 release of two 78 rpm sets of Oklahoma! These albums are displayed and the selections are played on the soundtrack that accompanies the exhibition. But the interrelationship of the theater and recording industry began at the birth of recorded sound with Broadway and vaudeville stars performing individual songs and sketches from their shows. Examples of these recordings by such artists as Lillian Russell, Nora Bayes, George M. Cohan, and Bert Williams will also be played in the exhibition.
The exhibition will document the history of cast albums, the manner in which they are produced, and their role in preserving musical theater and spreading awareness of productions. Recordings from the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound and circulating recorded sound collections will be augmented by photographs, posters, and archival materials such as letters and recording contracts from the Billy Rose Theatre Collection and the Music Division. The exhibition will feature touch-screens that enable the audience to access over three hours of excerpts, as well as a gallery soundtrack of favorite overtures. Image: Two versions of the LP original cast
recording for the 1955 musical "Damn Yankees." Rodgers and Hammerstein
Archives of Recorded Sound, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Used courtesy of the RCA Victor Group, a unit of BMG Music. Shadow
Puppetry The international art of shadow puppetry transcends time and geography.
In the summer of 2003, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts will
present artifacts and film honoring the ancient, traditional, and avant-garde
forms of this vivid art. The exhibition will feature examples of traditional
and modern puppets and screens from India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand, Greece,
Turkey, and Western Europe. It will include figures, designs, and performance
videos representing contemporary innovators Stephen Kaplin, Great Small Works,
Dan McGuire, Julie Taymor, Lee Breuer, Theodora Skipitares, and Richard Bradshaw,
who have been influenced by shadow puppetry's traditions. World
Music in New York New York provides passionate devotees and curious audiences for
African, Asian, Caribbean, South American, North American, and European artists.
It has become a capital of World Music through two routes. Traditional music,
often with dance or puppetry, is performed here by international masters of
the forms whose tours include the city, and by residents of New York whose families
or mentors have immigrated here with their performance genres. Both routes have
been documented throughout the 20th century by The New York Public Library for
the Performing Arts. Contemporary concerts will be featured in photographs by
Jack and Linda Vartoogian and video footage of performances. Field recordings
and researchers’ noncommercial recordings hold a century’s worth
of traditions. Artifacts from concert promoters show the development of New
York’s audience for the world’s music. Prokofiev
and His Contemporaries: The Impact of Soviet Culture This exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev's
death by focusing on Soviet culture of the 1920s through 1940s and its impact
on American performing arts. The life and work of the composer intersected with
the careers of many of the innovators of the Soviet era, from George Balanchine
to film director Sergei Eisenstein. Also featured in the exhibition will be
the scenic artists of Soviet Constructivist theater/dance, such as Mikhail Larianov,
Natalia Gontcharova, and Alexandra Exter, and director/playwrights Constantin
Stanislavsky, Vladimir Nemirovitch-Dantchenko, and Mayakovsky. American audiences
were impacted by occasional tours and immigration, so much so that Stanislavsky's
Moscow Art Theatre inspired naturalistic, or "method," acting which is now considered
the "American" style. Similarly, Balanchine (who translated his traditional
ballet training through the Constructivist work of his mentor Kas'yan Goleizovsky)
codified "American ballet." Schomburg
Center for Research in Black Culture The
Art of African Women: Empowering Traditions
Unique beadwork and handpainted items from the Ndebele Cultural Centre, gifts by African and African diasporan artists, and books by Margaret Courtney-Clarke are available at The Schomburg Shop. For information call, 212.491.2206. Image: Francina Ndimande, Mabhoko, Mpumalanga
Province, South Africa. Photograph by Margaret Courtney-Clarke for the exhibition.
Harlem
Is ...
Science, Industry
and Business Library Seeking the
Secret of Life: The DNA Story in New York The year 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the
DNA double helix, one of the greatest and most influential scientific discoveries
ever. Researchers in New York made significant contributions along the route
to the double helix and the exhibition highlights these contributions. The show's
primary theme is the research that lay on a direct path to the double helix
and was carried out at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Rockefeller University,
and Columbia University. The exhibit is intended for the lay public and will
place the discovery in a social and historic context. Humanities and Social Sciences Library The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Science, Industry and Business Library Tours Humanities and Social Sciences Library: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., a free one-hour tour of the landmark building. Group tours by appointment; call 212.930.0501 for reservations and fees. Gottesman Exhibition Tours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. Humanities and Social Sciences Library, first floor. Group tours by appointment; call 212.930.0501 for reservations and fees. The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts: Tuesday at 2:30 p.m., a free tour of the Library, starting from the lobby at the Lincoln Center Plaza entrance. Call 212.870.1630 for more information. Science, Industry and Business Library: Tuesday at 2 p.m., a free one-hour tour. For information, call 212.592.7250. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture: Group tours
are available by appointment. Call 212.491.2207. The Library Shops The Library Shop at Mid-Manhattan The Library Shop at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library
The Schomburg Shop Information Public Relations Office: 212.221.7676, 212.704.8600 ###
th: pro |
New
York is a city that changes with blinding rapidity, but one thing has remained
constant throughout its 350-year history: good food. Whether at the inns and
taverns of Dutch Manhattan, gilded-age palaces like Delmonico’s, or today’s
four-star culinary shrines and humble ethnic eateries, New Yorkers have always
eaten better than the rest of the country. Curated by New York Times
Restaurant Critic William Grimes, New York Eats Out tells the story of
the city’s most enduring passion, the love affair with dining out from
the 19th century to the early 1960s. The exhibition, drawing on the Library’s
extensive Buttolph Menu Collection, materials from other divisions, and selected
loans, traces the rise of the restaurant from the opening of Delmonico's in
the 1820s to legendary spots like Le Pavillon, Lüchow’s, and the
Colony to the visionary restaurants that Joe Baum created in the late 1950s
and early 1960s.
In
celebration of the 350th anniversary (May 2003) of the first publication of
Izaak Walton’s The Compleat Angler, the Library offers a rich sampling
of editions of this classic and eminently readable guide to fly-fishing, along
with splendid copies of his other works, including those he inscribed to friends.
Beyond these, diverse examples of artwork show us the decorative skills that
artists have employed to bring “the contemplative man’s recreation”
to graphic life.
The
Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy of the Declaration of Independence
in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, written to show the original text he had composed
before it was revised by the Second Continental Congress. He sent out five or
six copies in the days following ratification on July 4, 1776; the Library’s
copy is one of two known to survive intact, a third survivor being fragmentary.
It is shown to celebrate Independence Day, together with the first Philadelphia
printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress.
These versions are complemented by such items as the earliest newspaper printings;
the second official version ordered by Congress, published by a woman printer
in Baltimore; and a letter from Franklin to Washington mentioning that the Declaration
was being drafted.
Through
a selection of over 200 rare works on paper, drawn from the collections of twelve
New York Public Library divisions, the exhibition traces Russia’s interaction
with European and Asian societies during its rise from relative isolation to
global empire. All of the materials on view date from 1453 to 1825 and nearly
a third are in languages other than Russian. The exhibition places Russia in
a global cultural context and stresses the exchange of ideas within and outside
of its borders. Among the works on view, many of which are being exhibited for
the first time, will be several of the oldest extant Cyrillic liturgical and
scriptural illuminated manuscripts in the United States, as well as early printed
books, woodcuts, engravings, watercolors, and maps.
Vaslav
Nijinsky (1890-1950) was one of the 20th century’s preeminent artists.
The exhibition focuses on his career as a dancer and choreographer in a time
marked by international disruptions of war as well as avant-garde collaborations
and artistic energy. Nijinsky was a principal member of the Imperial Ballet
in St. Petersburg and then became an international star through his performances
with Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in its seasons in Western Europe,
from 1908. His celebrity and lasting fame resulted from his premiere performances
in Mikhail Fokine ballets such as Petrouchka and Les Sylphides.
His own choreography - L'Après-midi d'un Faune (1913), Jeux
(1913), Le Sacre du Printemps (1913), and Till Eulenspiegel
(1916) - was revolutionary in rejecting standard ballet technique for new vocabularies
of movement.
The
LP era brought recordings of large numbers of contemporary shows by the major
companies (Decca, Columbia, Capitol, and RCA Victor), as well as studio recordings
that presented reconstructed past productions and "lost shows." A wide selection
of LP covers, including some of the most lavishly designed, will form a banner
that surrounds the exhibition gallery. As CDs replaced LPs, dropped songs and
more complete recordings were added to reformattings. Recordings became a focus
of theater historians. Most recently, all-star concerts, and their accompanying
recordings, have become major fundraising events. Some of the many formats in
which cast albums have been released will be exhibited, from early cylinders
thorugh reel-to-reel, audiocassettes, and compact discs.
The
Art of African Women: Empowering Traditions presents an unprecedented survey
of African artistic traditions that have been passed down from mothers to daughters
for centuries. The exhibition features more than 75 stunning photographs by
internationally acclaimed photojournalist Margaret Courtney-Clarke. Captured
during her 20-year quest to document traditions in South, West, and North Africa,
the images pay homage to the beauty African women have created in their lives
despite social, political, and economic upheavals. Courtney-Clarke, who was
born and raised in Namibia, introduced this body of work to the world in her
books Ndebele, African Canvas, and Imazighen. The photographs
on view are complemented by more than 30 objects, many of which have been photographed
with their creators.
In
association with Community Works and the New Heritage Theatre Group, the Schomburg
Center presents a multimedia, intergenerational, living history program that
celebrates 30 Harlemites (ages 50 to 100) whose contributions in the fields
of art, music, education, politics, community service, and sports define Harlem's
rich and diverse cultural legacy. On view at the Schomburg Center before beginning
a citywide tour, Harlem Is ... honors such luminary trailblazers as opera
singer Betty Allen, historian Dr. Yosef ben-Jachannan, Afto-Latin Jazz musician
Joe Cuba, author Rosa Guy, and many, many more. Community Works will present
performances, symposia, group tours, workshops, and tours of the community.