Past Exhibitions at the Stephen A. Schwarzman BuildingCurrent | Upcoming | Past | Online | Exhibition Hours | Calendar Search View Past Exhibitions at:
Search for a past exhibition. The Declaration of Independence The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy (clean, full-text version without corrections or alterations) of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, Jefferson made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. The Library’s copy is one of two known to survive intact. It is shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions are complemented by 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. Admission is free. Between Collaboration and Resistance: French Literary Life Under Nazi Occupation  The defeat of France by Germany in May–June 1940 transformed the lives of French writers and publishers. Freedom of expression, almost achieved after centuries of struggle, was now set aside. Writers matter in France, and writers were deeply implicated in the changes of 1940. Some of their colleagues were silenced for racial or political reasons. How should they respond? Should they collaborate? Resist? Wait and see? Or follow some more complicated pathway through the changing course of the war? All of them risked being used by one side or another. Yet they were expected, in a nation that placed a high value on its intellectuals, to offer moral leadership in a time of doubt and uncertainty. 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation  The year 1969 was a flashpoint in the history of LGBT civil rights struggles, marking a paradigmatic shift in the ways that gays and lesbians saw themselves and fought for their full inclusion within American society. In the wake of the Stonewall Riots on June 28 of that year, gays and lesbians in New York City radicalized in an unprecedented way, founding activist groups—Gay Liberation Front, the Radicalesbians, Gay Activists Alliance, and Street Transvestites Action Revolutionaries—that created a new vision: Gay Liberation. This exhibition charts the emergence of this new vision through photographs and original documents that show the evolution of Gay Liberation in New York City from the Stonewall Riots to the first LGBT pride march—Christopher Street Liberation Day 1970. Art Deco Design: Rhythm and Verve What is the reason for the enduring appeal of Art Deco design? The answer lies in the vitality of the decorative style’s visual elements. Art Deco captured the mood of 1920s and 1930s modernism, an age of jazz and streamlined machinery, with designs that are colorful, geometric, and filled with an intense rhythm. This exhibition seeks to give viewers a more intimate exposure to the style’s incredible energy by focusing on boldly graphic plate books, portfolios, and masterworks of the pochoir stencil print technique from the Library’s Art & Architecture Collection. Art Deco’s international flavor has played particularly well in New York, with many examples of landmark architecture and interiors throughout the city. The exhibition offers a reappraisal of the style’s most notable features and its often-overlooked legacy to modern art. Starting with key Art Nouveau designs that reveal the origins of the Art Deco impulse, the exhibition presents developing traits that move through the 1920s and into the next decade. Aspects of the style’s legacy can be seen in the first volume of the significant art journal Verve(1937-60), a review of art and literature that took root from the fertile soil of mature Art Deco, and in the innovative works of Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979), an avant-garde painter and designer, whose brightly colored and geometrically-shaped creations demonstrate the union of fine art and commercial design aesthetics. The Rose Haggadah  Special Display: The Rose Haggadah is a unique artists' book, bringing together fifty years of Passover-themed artwork, the results of an innovative annual commission from the Rose family—exceptional friends of The New York Public Library. Collected into three riotously eclectic volumes, the Rose Haggadah was presented to the Library's Dorot Jewish Division by the Rose family in 2005. Artists and approaches represented in this half-century collaboration range all the way from New York social realist Jack Levine to New York Review of Books caricaturist David Levine, via some of the most prominent American artists of the twentieth century. This Passover and in future years, the Library will show different openings of the Rose Haggadah; meanwhile, work has begun on volume four. Afghanistan, or The Perils of Freedom: Photographs by Stephen Dupont  Stephen Dupont is an award-winning photojournalist, documentary filmmaker, and war correspondent who is internationally recognized for his work in some of the world’s most dangerous areas, including Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Iraq, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Somalia, and Zaire. This exhibition features selected photographs from his work in Afghanistan, where he has covered everything from civil war and the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s to the launch of Operation Enduring Freedom and the ongoing war on terrorism. Also included are photographs from the series Axe Me Biggie, a phonetic rendering of the Dari for “Mister, take my picture.” Dupont made these portraits during the course of one day (March 13, 2006) with a Polaroid camera in a makeshift studio in the streets of Kabul. Together, these photographs tell a story of poverty, warfare, and broken promises, but also of perseverance and hope, as they refocus attention on the state of Afghanistan today. This exhibition, drawn from the Library's Photography Collection, is Dupont’s first solo show in the United States. William James Bennett: Master of the Aquatint View During the 1830s and early 1840s, William James Bennett (ca. 1784–1844) made a series of topographical prints that not only celebrated the beauty of the American landscape, but also recorded the young nation’s growing urban centers, with a special focus on New York. Bennett documented the bustling waterfront activity of thriving ports, bathing them in luminous light that unified water, ships, and architecture. Capturing the optimism of the new country, Bennett’s magnificent works—rendered in aquatint, a printmaking process that suggests the fluidity and transparency of watercolor—are regarded as the finest folio views of 19th-century American cities. The 40 prints and watercolors in this exhibition are drawn from the Print Collection of The New York Public Library, many from The Phelps Stokes Collection of American Historical Prints, donated to the Library by I. N. Phelps Stokes in 1930. This exhibition has been made possible by the continuing generosity of Miriam and Ira D. Wallach. Yaddo: Making American Culture This exhibition explores the role of Yaddo, the artists‘ retreat, in fostering 20th-century American arts and letters. Founded in 1900 by financier and philanthropist Spencer Trask and his wife, Katrina Trask, Yaddo began receiving guests in 1926 and was immediately hailed by The New York Times as a “new and unique experiment, which has no exact parallel in the world of fine arts.” Since that inaugural season, Yaddo has navigated the roiled cultural and political life of 20th-century America while hosting thousands of artists and writers, including such luminaries as James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Flannery O’Connor, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Truman Capote, Jacob Lawrence, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Philip Guston and Sylvia Plath. The Stadium: Daily News Photographs of the House That Ruth Built Yankee Stadium—The Stadium—is arguably the most iconic sports venue in America, and as much a part of the New York landscape as the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty. The 2008 baseball season turned sports spectators into witnesses of history as New Yorkers and Yankee fans the world over watched the last season-opener, the last All-Star game, the final pitch, and the last catch ever to take place in the House That Ruth Built. Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City  The exhibition Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City features the work of five contemporary New York–based photographers drawn primarily from new acquisitions in the Photography Collection. Thomas Holton’s The Lams of Ludlow Street is an empathetic account of one family’s daily life in Chinatown and a photographer’s personal quest to better understand his own heritage. Bettina Johae’s borough edges,nyc is a digital project exploring the edges of the city's five boroughs, which the photographer physically traversed as a way of “remapping” the supposedly well-known city. In Window, Reiner Leist used a 19th-century camera to photograph the view from his 26th-floor apartment on Eighth Avenue overlooking downtown Manhattan. At different times on almost every day during the past decade, Leist captured a slice of Manhattan that includes One Penn Plaza, Madison Square Garden, and, until September 11, 2001, the World Trade Center towers. Over the same period of time, Zoe Leonard tracked changes and disappearances occurring on the Lower East Side as a result of the city’s economic transformation; her Analogue also serves as both elegy and homage to a long-standing tradition of documentary photography. In his series Untitled/This is just to say, Ethan Levitas photographs individual train cars and their passengers along the elevated lines of the New York City subway, capturing unexpected moments of connection and contradiction in the most obvious and overlooked of public spaces. Levitas’s project, like all of the works in Eminent Domain, deals with the life of the city in terms of passage (of seasons and time, people and place) and exchange (between individual and collective, interior and exterior). Turning on the nature of photography itself (which always complicates the relationship between private and public property), the works in the exhibition intersect and resonate with current concerns about the reorganization of urban space in New York City. A publication accompanying the exhibition will include written meditations on these themes by the Bronx-born artist Glenn Ligon, who is known for his multi-media explorations of critical issues in contemporary culture.
Exhibition Brochure (PDF) Monumental France: The Photographs of Edouard Baldus  Edouard Baldus came to Paris from Prussia in 1838 to pursue painting, at which he had only very modest success. By 1849 he had turned his attentions to photography, a still-experimental medium that had been introduced only a decade earlier. Baldus was one of five photographers selected by the Commission des Monuments Historiques in 1851 to make surveys of historic sites around France. These Missions Héliographiques, as they were called, were intended to help the Commission determine the preservation and restoration needs at the sites, many of which had never been seen by the Commissioners. Baldus’s itinerary took him south and east where he photographed the Palace of Fontainebleau, Roman monuments and ruins and medieval churches in Provence, Arles, and the Rhône Valley. These photographs won him additional government support, and in the following years he photographed the major monuments of Paris, returned to the southern countryside, and in 1855 documented the construction of the New Louvre. This exhibition presents rare Edouard Baldus photographs from this period. Sketches on Glass: Clichés-Verre from The New York Public Library Cliché-verre is a technique that combines aspects of printmaking and photography. Developed around 1839, this process begins with a glass plate on which an artist either paints a design or scratches a design on a prepared ground. The glass plate is then treated as a negative and placed on top of light-sensitive paper and exposed to the sun. Artists of the Barbizon school were the first, and most prolific, experimenters with this technique. These artists, who lived and worked near the forest of Fontainebleau, celebrated the natural world. They turned away from both classical and romantic treatments of landscape and chose to depict humble scenes based on their direct observations of nature. This exhibition draws from the extraordinary holdings of French 19th-century prints in the Samuel Putnam Avery Collection and features cliché-verre landscapes by Camille Corot, Théodore Rousseau, Charles-François Daubigny, and Jean François Millet. John Milton at 400: “A Life Beyond Life”  Emblazoned high above the threshold, the expression “life beyond life” taken from John Milton’s stirring defense of free speech, aptly ushers visitors into the Rose Main Reading Room of The New York Public Library. With a reputation rivaling that of the work of Chaucer and Shakespeare, the poetry of John Milton (1608–1674) was avidly collected by the Library's founding fathers, Samuel J. Tilden and James Lenox. This Wachenheim Gallery exhibition fittingly celebrates the quadricentennial of Milton’s birth by giving as much emphasis to his masterworks as to revealing the different ways his poetry has been appreciated by admirers and critics. The first part of the exhibition consists of three sections introducing visitors to Milton’s life, work, and those influences most affecting his development; the exhibition’s second part is divided into three historical sections, showing visitors how in each century, Milton’s readers brought their own concerns, values, and biases to his poetry. Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac on the Road  This exhibition will explore the life and career of the Beat writer and poet Jack Kerouac, including the evolution of On the Road and other works; his unique amalgam of Christian and Buddhist spirituality; and his attitude to the movement that he felt had forsaken its beatific roots and purpose. The exhibition will draw on the contents of the Jack Kerouac Archive, housed in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, and will display many of Kerouac’s unpublished manuscripts, drafts and notes for published works, diaries, journals, correspondence, drawings and paintings; his minutely detailed fantasy baseball and fantasy horse racing materials; and unpublished photographs of him and his family. Punctuating the exhibition at various points will be the objects that Kerouac treasured throughout his life, including the crutches he used after suffering a football injury while playing for Columbia University, his harmonicas, Buddhist bells, and his railroad track lantern.
The original scroll of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road will be on view from Friday, November 9 through Sunday, February 24. The exhibition will be closed from Monday, February 25 through Friday, February 29. Reopening on Saturday, March 1, the exhibition will continue through Sunday, March 16; during this period, a full-size facsimile of the scroll will be on view.
Graphic Modernism from the Baltic to the Balkans, 1910-1935  This exhibition explores the interplay between post–World War I national revivals and the broader European modernist artistic and literary movements of the early 20th century until the establishment of authoritarian regimes in the mid-1930s. Over fifty works on paper, primarily printed materials including books, book jackets, posters, and printed ephemera in more than a dozen languages, will be drawn from eight departments and collections at The New York Public Library. A featured artist or artists whose vision and oeuvre dominated a given region will anchor each of the five exhibition cases, for example: El Lissitzky from both Germany and Russia; Karel Teige from Czechoslovakia and Jerzy Hulewicz from Poland; Sirak Skitnik from Bulgaria and Fran Krajl from Slovenia; Lajos Kassák from Hungary and Victor Brauner from Romania; and Niklavs Strunke from Latvia and Jaan Vahtra from Estonia. This exhibition of East European modernism will be the first of its kind organized by the Library, and many of the individual books and artifacts from the historic foundation collections of the Library will be displayed here for the first time. Multiple Interpretations: Contemporary Prints in Portfolio at The New York Public Library  Prints by definition suggest multiplicity, and printmaking lends itself to projects that are best expressed through multiple images. The artists represented in this exhibition have taken advantage of printmaking’s penchant for serial imagery in order to tell a story, to take a stand on political and social concerns, to consider formal issues, and to explore the creative process. Among the 23 artists represented in this exhibition are: Christiane Baumgartner, Chris Burden, Ernesto Caivano, E.V. Day, Mark Dion, Olafur Eliasson, Tony Fitzpatrick, Wayne Gonzales, Elliott Green, Daniel Heyman, David Levinthal, Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese, Olaf Nicolai, Thomas Nozkowski, Juan Uslé, and John Wilson. Image: Ernesto Caivano (Spanish and American, born 1972 in Spain, lives in New York) Making the Scene: The Midtown Y Photography Gallery, 1972-1996  While photographs are exhibited widely today, their acceptance into the mainstream art world has been a long process, periodically fraught with controversy and debate. One of the more recent manifestations of this debate occurred in the late 1970s, when the rise of postmodern theory led to a reevaluation of the medium and a critical scrutiny of the museum's role in the promotion of photography's status. Until recently, less attention has been paid to the role of alternative spaces, particularly those devoted to the exhibition of photography. If the triumph of art photography now seems like a foregone conclusion, prior to the 1980s, very few galleries showed photography exclusively and emerging photographers were faced with limited options for exhibiting their work outside museums. The Midtown Y Photography Gallery was the first non-profit organization in New York City with a mission to provide a public space for the display of photographs, helping dozens of photographers make the scene that it helped to bring about over 25 years, from 1972 to 1996 when the gallery closed. This exhibition offers a broader vision of the photography that was seen during the period in which photography became a mainstay of the art world, as well as an intimate portrait of one New York gallery. The Declaration of Independence  The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy (clean, full-text version without corrections or alterations) of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, Jefferson made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. The Library’s copy is one of two known to survive intact. It is shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions are complemented by 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. In addition to the exhibition, the 14-minute film We Hold These Truths …, a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence, will be shown continuously in the South Court Visitors’ Center. Admission is free. From Revolution to Republic in Prints and Drawings  A celebration of the profound and diverse holdings of early American prints and drawings in The New York Public Library, this two-part exhibition draws primarily from the Phelps Stokes, Emmet, Eno and C. W. McAlpin collections, all part of the Print Collection of The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, and from the Spencer Collection. Dawn of the American Revolution, 1768–1776 features many firsthand visual accounts of the major battles and scenes of the early Revolutionary period, a number of them executed by British and American soldiers who participated in the incidents they depicted. Selections from the C. W. McAlpin Collection highlights a variety of pieces from this collection of portraits of George Washington, ranging from formal portraits to allegories and mourning pictures, and from etchings and engravings to textiles and badges. Russia Imagined, 1825-1925: The Art and Impact of Fedor Solntsev  The defeat of Napoleon in 1815 sparked a surge of nationalism throughout Europe, and the search for a national past was a European preoccupation in the early decades of the 19th century. From London to St. Petersburg, artists turned for inspiration to the new sciences of archaeology and ethnography. Artists A.W.N. Pugin in England and A.J. Davis in America looked to medieval cathedrals to create the Gothic Revival. In Imperial Russia, Fedor Solntsev (1801 – 1892), under elite patronage, worked on important commissions to record, preserve, and refashion the remains of medieval culture in a strikingly modern way. Solntsev’s meticulous drawings of regalia, icons, and weaponry, his watercolor portraits of the peoples of European Russia, his restoration of historic monuments, and his experiments at design in an “Old Russian” style helped to express a newly crafted sense of national identity. The exhibition, drawn from the Library’s incomparable holdings of Solntsev’s work, explores his prodigious career and the extraordinary range of his artistic endeavors within their historical context. It considers Solntsev’s role in developing a distinctive Russian-Slavonic style, from its initial archaeological and ethnographic origins to its final flowering in the lush sets and costumes of the famous Ballets Russes. William Godwin's Juvenile Library - POSTPONED POSTPONED "I Was in the Neighborhood" To celebrate the opening of the "Spider-Man III" movie, New York City has declared April 30 to May 6 Spider-Man Week. Comic book and Spider-Man fans everywhere will also have an opportunity to see several, never-before-displayed, original Marvel Spider-Man comic books from the The New York Public Library's collection. A Rakish History of Men's Wear  This exhibition surveys men's dress from antiquity to the present, noting how through the centuries male style has swung from ostentation to restraint and back again. Masculine clothing has changed over time owing to a multitude of social, economic, and attitudinal transformations. At first, individuals chose garments that proclaimed their rank or special status as warriors and leaders. Later, sumptuary laws (restricting what could and could not be worn), chivalric codes, and the rituals of royal courts played a role in the development of masculine garments. By the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, male fashion leaders were admired both overtly and covertly. The growth of a new bourgeoisie in the late 18th century further influenced the outward expression of modern masculinity, as dandies took upon themselves the role of fashion leaders. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 4.3 MB) Where Do We Go from Here? The Photo League and Its Legacy (1936-2006)  In January of 1948, the photographer Walter Rosenblum published the article "Where Do We Go from Here?" in response to the blacklisting of the Photo League by Attorney General Tom Clark. Disregarding the actual photographs produced by the League's members, the FBI emphasized the organization's commitment to social causes in order to allege subversive activities and political alliances. The claims of subversion were never substantiated, but the Photo League, a cooperative of amateur and professional photographers, was forced to disband in 1951 after an informant testified that it was a front for the Communist party. Now recognized as an important force in the development of American photography, the Photo League trained an entire generation of New York photographers, a number of whom continue to practice today. In recognition of the 70th anniversary of the League's founding, this exhibition celebrates the diverse oeuvre of these photographers and their unflagging commitment to their medium. It also serves as a reminder that the political climate of the nation can have real consequences on its cultural life. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 1.4 MB) Image: Lewis Hine's "Two Mill Workers", ca. 1905. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, Print Collection Jim Dine's Pinocchio  Painter, printmaker, sculptor, photographer, performance artist, and poet, Jim Dine (b. 1935) has devoted the last three years to a personal interpretation of a story that has engaged and intrigued him for much of his life, Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. Dine has made his own the tale of the temptations, trials, tribulations, and ultimate triumph of this mischievous but endearing wooden boy in thirty-nine hand-colored lithographs, on view in this exhibition, and reproduced in a new edition of Pinocchio published by Steidl. This exhibition celebrates Dine's promised gift of these prints to the Spencer Collection of The New York Public Library, the most recent in a series of gifts to the Library from Jim Dine, documenting his extraordinary career as an artist of the book. read more... Image: Frontispiece for Pinocchio by Jim Dine and Carlo Collodi (Steidl, 2006). Lithograph, hand-colored with acrylic and pastel Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan  The Japanese literary tradition, dating from as early as the 8th century, is among the richest and most enduring of any country in the world, and ehon, or "picture books," although little known in the West are one of the glories of world art. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 3 MB) French Book Art/Livres d'Artistes: Artists and Poets in Dialogue  Paris in the 19th and 20th centuries witnessed a vivid collaboration between artists and writers, and they regularly produced spectacular results of their personal and professional friendships. Image: Alain Jouffroy (b. 1928) | René Magritte (1898–1967). Aube à l’antipode [Dawn on the Other Side of the World]. Paris: Le Soleil noir, 1966. Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet. © 2006 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photograph © Michel Nguyen The Declaration of Independence The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, Jefferson made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. The Library's copy is one of two known to survive intact, a third survivor being fragmentary. It is shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions are complemented by 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. "We hold these truths ...," a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence, is a 14-minute film that is shown continuously in the South Court Visitors' Theater. Admission is free. Recent Acquisitions: New York Street Photography from the 1960s and 1970s  This exhibition features the work of three New York photographers, Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and Joel Meyerowitz, who played a major role in the emergence of street photography as a central photographic practice in the 1960s. Following the lead of William Klein and Robert Frank, these photographers helped to transform documentary photography with their eccentric vision of the world. As the practice extended into the 1970s, street photography absorbed other artistic movements, as evidenced by the work of William Gedney, Roy Colmer, and Thomas Struth, whose photographs demonstrate both the continuity and diversity of photography in the streets of New York. The show is the first in a planned series of exhibitions that will showcase recently acquired New York City photographs from 1950 to the present. Image: Joel Meyerowitz
Rockefeller Center, 1970 Recent Acquisitions: Old Master Prints  This exhibition will include 75 prints, acquired between 2000-2005, and will feature prints by Fontainebleu printmaker Pierre Milan, Jaques Callot, Jan van de Velde II, Domenico and Lorenzo Tiepolo, Philibert-Louis Debucourt and Ferdinand Olivier, among others. In addition to comments on each artist/printmaker, the exhibit will address the kinds of issues, which are considered when acquiring a print for the collection, from context to condition. Image: Jean-Baptiste Chapuy (French, ca. 1760-1802) Letters to Sala: A Young Woman's Life in Nazi Labor Camps  At age sixteen, Sala Garncarz entered the Nazi labor camp system, where she would be imprisoned from 1940 to 1945. During that time she was able to collect and preserve a collection of 300 letters sent to her by friends and family from outside and within the camps. The letters were recently donated to the Library's Dorot Jewish Division by Sala's daughter, Ann Kirschner, and form the basis for the exhibition, in which they will be displayed for the first time. In passionate terms, the letters document the harsh consequences of the Nazi slave labor system on both the interned Jews and their torn families. They also reflect Sala’s relationship with such noteworthy figures as Ala Gartner, one of four women hanged in Auschwitz after participating in an armed rebellion. Letters to Sala will reveal rare documentation of Nazi atrocities written by the victims of those events during the time they were unfolding. Image: Sala Garncarz at 12 Treasured Maps: Celebrating The Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division  Established in 1898 as a separate collection of The New York Public Library, and named a Division in 1947, the Map Division is a treasure-filled place, with maps and atlases dating from the 16th century to the present. This exhibition celebrates the Map Division's reopening in December 2005 after months of renovation. The last public reading room to be renovated, the Map Division will double its reader capacity and services with its new look. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 7.8 MB) Image: John Seller's "A Mapp of the World" The Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts at The New York Public Library  The New York Public Library possesses one of the finest collections of medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts in North America, yet its manuscript holdings are scarcely known to scholars, much less to a wide public audience. Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts are vehicles of the collective memory of western European culture, and provide a material connection between the scribes, illuminators, and patrons who produced these works and the audiences who view them today. The works represent diverse genres, from Bibles and missals to romance literature and science texts. Drawn entirely from the Library's Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, the 100 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the exhibition will focus on the 9th through the 16th centuries -- seven hundred years of profound political, ecclesiastical, social, and intellectual change in Western Europe and the world. read more... Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 1 MB) Image: Prints With/Out Pressure: American Relief Prints from the 1940s through the 1960s  American artists in the mid 20th century were particularly intrigued by relief printmaking, whether woodcut, linocut, or experimental uses of plastic as a printing surface. While some artists continued to work in a realistic, illustrative style, others explored the expressive possibilities of the medium, often in service of abstraction. Among the artists represented in the Library's Print Collection whose work will be on view in the third-floor Print and Stokes Galleries will be Josef Albers, Leonard Baskin, Robert Conover, Werner Drewes, Antonio Frasconi, Naum Gabo, Misch Kohn, Paul Landacre, Boris Margo, Seong Moy, Anne Ryan, Bernard Reder, Luigi Rist, and Louis Schanker. "I Am With You": Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855-2005)  This exhibition commemorates the 150th anniversary of the publication of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. Whitman revised and added to his great poem throughout his life, and the exhibition will feature first and rare editions of the major versions, as well as manuscript drafts, books, and trial proofs annotated in the poet’s hand, drawn primarily from the holdings of the Library's Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. read more... Before Victoria: Extraordinary Women of the British Romantic Era  Before Victoria, drawn from the Pforzheimer, Berg, and Print Collections of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, will bring together literary and cultural history, and explore the transformation of British society through the lives of a number of remarkable women, some well-known today and some almost totally forgotten. In the half-century or so before Victoria came to the throne in 1837, a woman alone taking an active public role became unacceptable to the majority of her compatriots, male and female. This did not stop women of the Romantic period from making contributions of surprising magnitude and number to Britain’s public culture -- contributions that have too often been overlooked. read more... The Declaration of Independence The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, Jefferson made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. The Library's copy is one of two known to survive intact, a third survivor being fragmentary. It is shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions are complemented by 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. "We hold these truths ...," a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence, is a 14-minute film that is shown continuously in the South Court Visitors' Theater. Admission is free. Drawings by Charles Addams  This exhibition is part of an ongoing, rotating selection of darkly humorous drawings by cartoonist Charles Addams, featuring many that appeared in The New Yorker. These drawings 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. I Am the Rose: Passover Imagined in the Collections of The New York Public Library  With this exhibition, the Library celebrates the addition to its illuminated manuscript holdings of a distinguished 20th-century example of the genre, the gift of New York philanthropists Sandra, Daniel, and Elihu Rose and their families. The manuscript, in three volumes, is the result of eighty years of extended family seders in the homes of Joseph and Anna Rose and Samuel and Belle Rose and their descendants. read more... Milton Avery: The Flying Pig and Other Winged Creatures  Milton Avery (1885-1965) was one of the foremost modernist American painters, recognized for his uniquely spare style combining figurative realism and lyrical abstraction with an extraordinary sense of color. In addition to painting, Avery produced nearly sixty drypoints, lithographs, and woodcuts in sporadic periods from 1933 to 1963. In 1946, at the instigation of his friend, painter Mark Rothko, Avery created his only illustrations, a set of eight witty and colorful gouache paintings for a children’s book entitled Paul, which remained unpublished during the artist's lifetime. Acquired in 2001 for the Library's Spencer Collection through the generosity of Milton Avery's family, the original illustrations for Paul will be exhibited publicly for the first time. The illustrations will be shown along with a selection of Avery’s prints, acquired for the Print Collection from 1948 to 2004. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 745 KB) Faith and Legacy: The Hellenic World from the Collections of The New York Public Library  In conjunction with the Hellenic Festival in New York, The New York Public Library is presenting a highly selective exhibition of approximately 25 important manuscripts and printed books in Greek and other languages as enduring reflections of contributions from Greece to the world in religion, literature, philosophy, history, science, and art, shaping civilization over an enormous span of centuries. The manuscripts and books are drawn from the Special Collections of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, and several will be exhibited for the first time at the Library. read more... Image: The man who promised the impossible. In Aesop's Fables, f. 10r. Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library Decoration in the Age of Napoleon: Empire Elegance Versus Regency Refinement  Two distinctive movements, now known as the Empire Style and the Regency Style, were born out of the formal Neoclassicism that dominated late eighteenth-century European building and decoration. These styles were stimulated by the rivalry of France and England and their rulers. Napoleon I (1769-1821), self-styled Emperor of the French, assumed the throne in 1804 and immediately launched an ambitious art and design program that lasted until his reign ended in 1815. Across the English Channel, the Prince Regent, the future King George IV (1762-1830), also proved to be an active patron of the arts. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 4.4 MB) Image: "Clock in bronze doré on ebony base." Watercolor and pen original drawing in French Goldsmith's Designs, ca. 1800. Paris, ca.1800. Art & Architecture Collection, The New York Public Library. The Newtonian Moment: Science and the Making of Modern Culture  Isaac Newton is a legendary figure whose mythical dimension perpetually threatens to overshadow the actual man. The story of the apple falling from the tree may or may not be true, but his revolutionary discoveries and their importance to the Enlightenment era and beyond are undeniable. The Newtonian Moment: Science and the Making of Modern Culture will explore the many facets of Newton's colossal accomplishments, as well as the debates over the kind of knowledge most worth having that these accomplishments engendered. read more... Image: An orrery, a mechanical model of the solar system. Engraving in The General Magazine of Arts and Sciences, 1755. General Research Division, The New York Public Library. James Gillray  The golden age of English caricature, from the late 1770s to the second decade of the 19th century, encompasses the life of its leading exponent, James Gillray (1756-1815), who contributed in no small measure to the brilliance and audacity of the political, personal, and social satires of this period. Gillray subjected all the key political figures of his day, along with the King, the Queen, the Prince of Wales, and assorted aristocracy, to his witty, telling, and often outrageous exaggerations, elaborations, and confabulations, and, in the process, transformed what was then the new genre of personal caricature into high art. With James Gillray, more than 160 of the artist's prints and drawings will be on view in the third-floor Print and Stokes Galleries. read more... Image: "Midas transmuting all into gold paper," handcolored etching, 1797. Drawings by Charles Addams This exhibition is part of an ongoing, rotating selection of darkly humorous drawings by cartoonist Charles Addams, featuring many that appeared in The New Yorker. These drawings 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. A Literary Christmas Miscellany from the Berg Collection  Special Display: A Christmas display 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. Image: A portrait of Dickens, drawn in pencil, dry brush and crayon, heightened with white, by an unidentified artist, ca. 1869. Berg Collection. Jewes in America: Conquistadors, Knickerbockers, Pilgrims, and the Hope of Israel  Acknowledging a pair of pamphlets once as influential as they now seem bizarre -- the English Protestant Thomas Thorowgood's Jewes in America; or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that race, and the Dutch rabbi Menasseh ben Israel's Hope of Israel -- this exhibition is the Library’s contribution to New York's yearlong celebration of the 350th anniversary of the arrival, in September 1654, of the first Jews in this city, and thus in the future United States. read more... Image: Thomas Thorowgood, Iewes in America, or, Probabilities That the Americans Are of That Race. London: Printed by W. H. for Tho. Slater, 1650. Rare Books Division, from the Lenox Library. The Declaration of Independence The Library's fair copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand, previously on display in July, returns for viewing for an additional two weeks. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, Jefferson made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. The Library’s copy is one of two known to survive intact, a third survivor being fragmentary. It is shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions are complemented by 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. The Declaration of Independence The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson’s hand. In the days immediately following ratification on July 4, 1776, he made several copies of the text that had been submitted to the Continental Congress, underlining the passages to which changes had been made. 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 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. 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 copiously recorded by the growing numbers of printmakers active in the United States and its territories. 19th-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 18th-century views of America’s founding cities, as well as such dramatic 19th-century formats as the bird's-eye view. read more... Image: View of Boston, by F. Fuchs. Chromolithograph, published by John Weik, 1870. Drawings by Charles Addams This exhibition is part of an ongoing, rotating selection of darkly humorous drawings by cartoonist Charles Addams, featuring many that appeared in The New Yorker. These drawings 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. The Art Deco Bookbindings of Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler  French bookbinders led the world in their craft in the earlier part of the 20th century, especially from the 1920s to the 50s, and fostered the designer-bookbinder movement that took firm root in several other countries. Two of the most influential were Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler, who between them created some 525 bindings for Jacques Doucet, the French bibliophile, couturier, collector, and philanthropist. A highly select group of 43 Art Deco bindings, drawn from the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet in Paris — plus 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. read more... Image: Paul Morand. Les Amis nouveaux. Illustrated by Jean Hugo. Paris: Au Sans Pareil, 1924. Binding design: Pierre Legrain, 1927. Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet. Photograph by Michel Nguyen. Ninety from the Nineties: A Decade of Printing  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 is twofold. It highlights selected works that were added to the collection over the past decade and it attempts to illustrate current trends among the artists and craftsmen engaged in the book arts. read more... Image: Julie Chen. Bon Bon Mots: A Fine Assortment of Books. Berkeley, Calif.: Flying Fish Press, 1998. NYPL, Rare Books Division. Julie Chen designed and made the five miniature books and the box, which resembles a box of chocolates. Russia Engages the World, 1453 - 1825  This revised version of the exhibition presented at the Library last fall contains a number of items not part of the original presentation, including several spectacular items acquired by the Library in 2003. Through a wide variety of rare works on paper drawn from more than a dozen New York Public Library divisions, complemented by a small selection of loan items representing the decorative and fine arts, the exhibition traces Russia's interaction with European as well as Asian and Islamic societies during its rise from relative isolation to global empire. All the materials on view date from 1453 to 1825. More than fifteen world languages are represented in the exhibition, which places Russia in a global cultural space and stresses interactions within and outside of its borders. read more... Image: A Kalmyk horseman. Hand-colored engraving from: The Costume of the Allied Armies in Paris in the Year 1815. [Paris, 1816]. Spencer Collection. Baseball at The New York Public Library Special Display: On view is a scrapbook opened to show two cards from the Mecca Double Folders series, which pictures two players per card. The players share the bottom part of the card, usually showing the calves and feet; the top, when folded, depicts one player and, when flipped open, another. On the back are the statistics for both players. The card on the top left of the page features Christy Mathewson and Al Bridwell of the New York Giants; the card on the bottom shows first baseman Frank Chance and, inside, second baseman Johnny Evers. Chance and Evers made up two-thirds of the famous double-play combination "Tinker to Evers to Chance." This scrapbook includes the rare Honus Wagner baseball card and other baseball memorabilia and is preserved within the Goulston Collection, housed in the Library’s George Arents Collection on Tobacco. Russia Engages the World, 1453-1825 Through a selection of approximately 230 rare works on paper, drawn from the collections of twelve New York Public Library divisions, this exhibition traces Russia’s interaction with Europe, Asia and the Americas during its rise from relative isolation to global empire. The exhibition places Russia in a global cultural context and stresses the exchange of ideas within and outside of its borders. Image: A Kalmyk horseman. Hand-colored engraving from: The Costume of the Allied Armies in Paris in the Year 1815. [Paris, 1816]. Spencer Collection. Depression-era Prints and Photographs from the WPA and FSA  During the Great Depression, a portion of the funding for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was designated for the aid of unemployed writers, musicians, actors, and artists, leaving them free to create. A number of their prints were then distributed to schools, libraries, museums, and other institutions around the country. The prints on display celebrate the unique relationship between the government and the arts. Image: Harry Gottlieb, Rock Drillers. Screen print. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. A Literary Christmas Miscellany from the Berg Collection This year’s Christmas display includes a variety of literary materials, representing such authors as Charles Dickens, James Joyce, and E. E. Cummings, and will feature Dickens's prompt copy of A Christmas Carol, from which he gave his public readings. read more... Drawings by Charles Addams This exhibition is part of an ongoing, rotating selection of darkly humorous drawings by cartoonist Charles Addams, featuring many that appeared in The New Yorker. These drawings 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. The September 11 Photo Project  The New York Public Library will display photographs and personal statements submitted to the September 11 Photo Project, initiated in a SoHo gallery as a community-based response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the downing of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania. Following the close of the New York exhibition, the Project traveled to Washington, D.C., Sacramento, Pasadena, Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta. Additional photographs were collected in each city from anyone wishing to participate. Included in the Library’s exhibition are images of the events of September 11, 2001, in New York and the two other disaster sites, as well as photographs from California and other states, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The photographs range from amateur snapshots to finely printed larger-format photographs and digitally manipulated works. The Declaration of Independence The Library is honored to safeguard a fair copy of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand. It is shown to celebrate Independence Day, together with printed versions of the Declaration of Independence. read more... Passion's Discipline: The History of the Sonnet in the British Isles and America  This exhibition considers the development of the sonnet, the structured poetic form that has provided writers with a vessel for passionate feelings on many topics since its development in 13th-century Italy, illustrating how a poem's intensity is enhanced and clarified by the discipline of confining it in a formal structure. Public tours of Passion's Discipline are conducted every day at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. read more... Exhibition Brochure (PDF) New York Eats Out  Curated by New York Times Restaurant Critic William Grimes, New York Eats Out tells the story of the city's love affair with dining out from the 19th century to the early 1960s. The exhibition traces the rise of the restaurant from the opening of Delmonico's in the 1820s to legendary spots like Le Pavillon, Lüchow's, the Colony, and the Four Seasons. read more... 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. read more... Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, 1653-2003  In celebration of the 350th anniversary (May 2003) of the first publication of Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, this exhibition offers a rich sampling of editions of this classic and eminently readable guide to fly-fishing, along with splendid copies of Walton's other works, including those he inscribed to friends. read more... Exhibition Brochure (PDF) Image: Izaak Walton & Charles Cotton. The Complete Angler. 2 vols. London: [Charles Wittingham for] William Pickering, 1836. Poetry of Sight: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903)  Famed painter, draughtsman, and designer, James McNeill Whistler was also a devoted printmaker. Commemorating the centenary of Whistler's death, this exhibition presents over 130 of his etchings, drypoints, and lithographs from the Library's Print Collection. read more... Exhibition Brochure (PDF) 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. 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. With the commencement of the 2003 baseball season, the Library's rare Honus Wagner baseball card, the most revered of all 20th-century baseball memorabilia, will be on view. read more... Image: Honus Wagner baseball card, ca. 1910. Renaissance Bindings for Henri II  Often gilded and highly decorated with onlays and inlays, the bindings from the royal libraries in France on view at The New York Public Library represent the golden age of French bookbinding. Created primarily during the reign of Henri II (1547-59), these bindings overwhelm the eye with their richness and variety of color, scale, and mass. The Library will display 26 bindings, a choice selection of those that were on view in 1999 at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. As the bindings are essentially intact since their production four and a half centuries ago, this exhibition serves as a clear window onto French Renaissance craftsmanship, materials, and design. Image: Henri II alla greca orange goatskin entrelac binding, ca. 1552-53, on: Clement of Alexandria, Opera (Florence, 1550). Bibliothèque nationale de France. Urban Neighbors: Images of New York City Wildlife  Urban Neighbors is a celebration of the diversity and abundance of New York City wildlife, as documented in artistically striking visual images selected from The New York Public Library's vast resources. Pigeons, House Sparrows, Crows, Starlings, Gray Squirrels, House Mice, feral cats, Blue Jays, and Robins (and an occasional Library Lion) are inhabitants of New York City's "concrete jungle," as are the Peregrine Falcons nesting on skyscrapers and bridges, Monk Parakeet communities thriving on Brooklyn utility poles, and House Finches waking apartment dwellers with their melodious early morning song. The city's extensive green areas -- parks and wildlife refuges, lawns and backyards -- are rich in diverse species of birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles, insects and other invertebrates. The waters surrounding and within the city are now cleaner than they have been in many years, and are home to numerous fishes and invertebrates, as well as water birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.
Image: Bullfrog (Rana catesbiana). Hand-colored etching by Mark Catesby from his drawing. In: M. Catesby, The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands …, Vol. 2 of 2 (1771). Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library. Drawings by Charles Addams: The Unnatural New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams seems to have considered nature to be anything but natural. A bear commutes to work by unicycle, lumberjacks chop down a tree with numbered rings, and an exacting dog herds sheep in formation in this exhibition of the plant, animal, and otherworldly kingdoms. This exhibition complements Urban Neighbors: Images of New York City Wildlife, an exhibition in Gottesman Exhibition Hall. A Legacy in Landscapes  A Legacy in Landscapes pays tribute to a bequest made in 1992 to the Print Collection of The New York Public Library for the purchase of landscape prints. The more than 100 prints in this exhibition were acquired through funds bequeathed by a generous donor and dedicated volunteer, Mary W. Covington, in honor of Elizabeth E. Roth, the Library's Curator of Prints from 1968 to 1981. Among the prints on view, ranging in date from the early 16th century through 2001, paralleling the scope of the Print Collection, will be work by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Caspar David Friedrich, Eugène Delacroix, Camille Pissarro, Edvard Munch, Salvador Dalí, Alex Katz, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, Marcus Raetz, and Jorge Pardo. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 1.6 MB) 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. Reviews of Two Worlds: French and American Literary Periodicals, 1850-2002  For the past 150 years, literary magazines have served as the telegraph/telephone/e-mail connection for a variety of literary dialogues between French and American writers, permitting, with relative speed and facility, the transmission of poetry from one people to the other. The ephemeral, periodic quality of the "little review" has provided a unique forum for the sustained exchange of ideas that continue to inform the writing of French and American poets up to the present day. With the advent of web-based publishing, the products of this exchange have been projected into another dimension, and endowed with a presence and immediacy that seem to erase the real time and space separating the two countries, thus moving their respective poetries even closer. The goal of this exhibition is to document the high points of this exchange, following it as it writes itself on the pages of French and American literary magazines from 1945 through the present. By documenting the practice of publishing translations in journals, the exhibition will reveal the many ways in which the two parallel traditions have informed and influenced one another. Illuminated Manuscripts and the Dawn of Printing  This is the first of a series of exhibitions highlighting selections of the most precious items from the many divisions of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. Many of these treasures have been part of The New York Public Library's collections since it was founded in 1895 by the consolidation of the Astor Library, the Lenox Library, and the Tilden Trust. Others have been acquired by subsequent generations of the Library's staff. Items featured include the Gutenberg Bible, the first substantial printed book in the West (ca. 1455); a selection of leaves from The Towneley Lectionary (ca. 1550-60), with miniatures attributed to Giulio Clovio, the most celebrated Italian illuminator of his day; and the 1501 Aldine Virgil, the first volume of Aldus's "Portable Library," which launched a revolution in the book arts. Also on view will be the illuminated manuscript "Medici Aesop" (late 15th century) and two early printed editions, the renowned Neapolitan edition Vita; Fabulae published by Francesco del Tuppo in 1485 and illustrated with 88 wood-block prints, and the first Japanese publication of Aesop's fables, Isoho Monogatari (1659), to include illustrations. New American Literary Magazines  Literary Magazines, or little magazines as they are sometimes called, have played a critical role in our culture. They provide a forum for new and experimental writing, nurture important literary developments, and document social and political movements. The Public's Treasures: A Cabinet of Curiosities from The New York Public Library  The Library's Salomon Room has become a veritable cabinet of curiosities in the second installment of The Public's Treasures. A phenomenon of the Renaissance, cabinets of curiosities (also known as Wunderkammern, or cabinets of wonder) proliferated throughout Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Encyclopedic in approach, the cabinets emphasized the exceptional, the rare, and the marvelous, attempting to encompass the results both of God's creation (nature) and of man's (art). Today the world's great research libraries exemplify the eclectic and universal nature of the cabinet of curiosities. Exhibition Brochure (PDF) Victorians, Moderns, and Beats: New in the Berg Collection, 1994-2001  This exhibition will display a selection of materials acquired by the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature since 1994 (the year following the last such exhibition) to the present. Divided into two sections--Great Britain/Ireland and America--it will include books, manuscripts, notebooks, photographs, and other archival materials of noted poets and writers. The British portion of the exhibition opens with an autograph manuscript of an unpublished poem by George Crabbe (1754-1832), dating probably from the late eighteenth century. The nineteenth century is represented by Herman Melville's inscribed copy of The Piazza Tales, and three albums of largely unpublished literary fragments by Walt Whitman. However, the great majority of the writers in the exhibition date from the twentieth century, including T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Lawrence Durrell, Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Dylan Thomas, Randall Jarrell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Saul Bellow. A significant portion of the American half of the exhibition is devoted to the Beats, especially Jack Kerouac, whose archive was recently purchased. The Declaration of Independence 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. The Wachenheim Gallery will house it seasonally, in June and July, to celebrate Independence Day. It will be shown together with the first Philadelphia printing and the first New York printing of the final version issued by Congress. These versions will be complemented by 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. Drawings by Charles Addams: Unreal Estate The Library's ongoing exhibition of the work of New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams continues with his curious response to place. The drawings on view, ranging from the tantalizing conditions in Hell to the less than comforting settings of Mother Goose's nursery rhymes, make even the most familiar locales, stories, and associations of time and place seem bizarre. Souvenirs of a Veteran Collector: The Samuel Putnam Avery Collection at The New York Public Library  In 1900, the dealer, collector, and patron of the arts Samuel Putnam Avery presented his collection of nearly 18,000 prints to The New York Public Library, thereby establishing the first public print collection in New York City. To honor Avery and his gift, the Library will mount an exhibition culled from this rich and varied collection. The vast majority of the prints are works by Avery's American and European contemporaries, including some whose names remain familiar, such as Mary Cassatt, Camille Corot, Edouard Manet, and James McNeill Whistler, as well as others, such as the now more obscure but no less talented Félix Bracquemond, François-Nicolas Chifflart, Norbert Goeneutte, and Charles Jacque. The Public's Treasures: Americana from The New York Public Library  The Public's Treasures is an ongoing cycle of exhibitions offering a wide-ranging sampling of the Library's greatest treasures. As befits one of the world's great research institutions, The New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library safeguards extensive collections of original materials in various media, ranging in date from three thousand years ago to the week before last. They come from East and West, are serious or lighthearted, and include both the noble and the poignant. Many of these collection items are by their nature unique or at least extraordinarily uncommon, and while they may be made available under stringent conditions to qualified researchers, they are rarely seen by the public save for selected items that are occasionally included in exhibitions on specific topics. Liturgical Manuscripts  The Library is home to approximately 300 medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, some of legendary rarity and importance. A choice gathering of those on liturgical themes will be displayed to mark the annual meeting in New York City of the Medieval Academy of America. Drawn from the Spencer Collection and the Manuscripts and Archives Division, they will represent the major categories of books used in church services across half a millennium. The celebrated Haarlem Gradual, recently a focal point of an exhibition in Utrecht, will be among them. Image: Padua Ashkenazi Mahzor. Ink, watercolor, and opaque pigment on vellum. Germany, ca. 1380. Dorot Jewish Division, The New York Public Library. Immortal Treasures: Japanese Handscrolls from the Spencer Collection  From May 1998 through May 2000, eight of The New York Public Library's treasured 16th- and 17th-century Japanese scrolls received conservation treatment in studios in the Tokyo National Museum and the Kyoto National Museum as part of a program sponsored by The Tokyo National Research Institute of Cultural Properties. The scrolls are among the greatest treasures of the Library's Spencer Collection and include: a late 16th-century (late Muromachi to Momoyama period) version of the Sanjurokkasen Emaki (Handscroll of the Thirty-six Immortal Poets), the earliest known fully intact scroll of the Fujifusa type, with thirty-six meticulously painted, imaginary portraits of the most highly esteemed men and women poets of the Heian period (794-1185); a single scroll from the acclaimed mid-17th century, twelve-volume set of the Taiheiki Emaki (Handscroll of the Chronicle of Great Peace), attributed to the well-known painter Kaiho Yusetsu (1598-1677), with episodes depicted from the classic 14th-century military epic, the Taiheiki Monogatari; and six miniature scrolls of the Hakubyu Genji Monogatari Emaki ("White Drawing" Handscrolls of the Tale of Genji), the earliest illustrated, dated (1554, Muromachi period) version of the Tale of Genji, signed by Keifukuin Gyokuei, an aristocratic amateur woman painter from Kyoto. Drawings by Charles Addams: Cultural Differences New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams clearly had a singular perception of the creative process and the institutions that preserve and display cultural treasures. This selection of drawings and New Yorker covers, which complements the exhibitions American Originals: Treasures from the National Archives and The Public's Treasures: Americana from The New York Public Library, features a devious young student with a bent for the occult in a figure modeling class, a displaced phantom leaving the old Metropolitan Opera House for Lincoln Center, a library with a peculiar selection of non-circulating material, and a guard at a museum of natural history who looks as if he has been on duty since the Jurassic period. American Originals: Treasures from the National Archives  The New York Public Library is the first venue on the nationwide tour of this critically acclaimed exhibition of documentary treasures from the National Archives. American Originals features some of the repository's most significant and compelling documents and provides a rare opportunity to view American history in the making, from the earliest days of the Revolution through the 20th century. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 2 MB) Image: Deed of Gift, Statue of Liberty, July 4, 1884. National Archives and Records Administration, General Records of the Department of State. Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Holiday Greetings from the George Arents Collection  This seasonal display of Charles Dickens's beloved tale includes the prompt copy from which he gave his public readings. Assembled from pages cut from a trade printing (12th edition; London: Bradbury & Evans, 1849) and inlaid into large octavo pages and bound, it contains the author's extensive notations, including directions for vocal expression, throughout. Also on display are a photograph (ca. 1848) of the original Tiny Tim--Dickens's nephew Harry Burnett; the 1843 first edition of A Christmas Carol with illustrations by John Leech; and a Royal Doulton china bust of Dickens. read more... Image: A later opening from the prompt-copy of A Christmas Carol, heavily marked up by Dickens with cuts, interpolations and directions for vocal expression ("Tone down to Pathos" ... "Up to cheerfulness"). The scene, from stave III of the Carol, is the Christmas celebration at the home of Scrooge's nephew Fred, to which the old miser has been transported by the Ghost of Christmas Present. Herman Melville's Moby-Dick To mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, the Library mounted a small exhibition consisting of a copy of the first edition and a selection from our extensive manuscript holdings. Often cited as "the great American novel," Moby-Dick is the culminating masterpiece of the American Renaissance. Celebrity Caricature in America  In early 20th-century America, a young generation of caricaturists deployed a fresh approach to the genre, inventing a popular new form of portraiture. In combination with demands from the burgeoning mass media, modern caricature helped change the nature of fame, contributing to a situation in which celebrity and publicity overtook achievement as the basis for fame. Celebrity Caricature in America explores the roots of modern celebrity and shows how this new form of portraiture of the famous permeated the press (Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, the New York World, and other periodicals) and popular consciousness. Included are portraits of café society luminaries drawn by Miguel Covarrubias for Vanity Fair in the 1920s, portraits of theater personalities like George M. Cohan by Al Frueh, and abstract caricatures by Marius de Zayas. Also featured among the more than 200 images on view are works by Al Hirschfeld, Will Cotton, Ralph Barton, Paolo Garretto, William Auerbach-Levy, and Peggy Bacon. This exhibition was originally organized by and presented at the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. It has been recreated at The New York Public Library, incorporating some additional materials from the Library's collections; among these are excerpts from audio recordings in the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, which may be heard at seven sound stations located throughout the exhibition. Touring West: 19th-century Performing Artists on the Overland Trails  Touring West complements Heading West and is curated from the research collections of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The exhibition focuses on the professional performances that toured the United States from the time of the Louisiana Purchase (1803) through the 19th century. From Italian opera ballet to melodrama to Suffragist lectures, a wide variety of performing genres were presented throughout the continent following the expansion of trade, shipping, and railroad routes. Some had "western" themes, but most productions came from the existing repertory of American and European performers. Touring companies and productions featured in the exhibition include the Solomon/Smith Noah Ludlow Mississippi River circuit; "Indian" heroic melodramas, such as John Augustus Stone's Metamora (1829); traveling singing groups such as the Hutchinson Family; and itinerant Shakespeare companies. read more... Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 1.5 MB) Odd Couples: Drawings by Charles Addams These drawings reveal Charles Addams's bizarre but humorous perception of familial, marital, and otherworldly relationships. This ongoing, rotating selection of drawings by Charles Addams features many which appeared in The New Yorker. Heading West: Mapping the Territory  From the Greeks to Columbus, the westward passage was always toward the new, toward hope. The earliest maps of America imply a constricted west, amounting to perhaps a two-week march over the mountains to the great Western ocean. The dream of a northwest passage, cutting through the American continent that was blocking easy passage to Asia and its riches, pulled many westward for more than 400 years. The Map Division has over 6,000 sheet maps of the American West, from which the materials in Heading West will be drawn, supplemented by materials from the General Research Division. There are military maps of various Indian territories; geological and railroad reconnaissance surveys; government maps conveniently citing locations of gold, silver, quicksilver, and coal; maps of land grants, military reservations, and Indian lands; maps of the gold rush lands; city plans; early maps of national parks; and explorers' maps. The maps also illustrate the evolution of mapmaking in this country, from copper plate engraving, to New York City "heliographer" Baron Von Egloffstein's fantastic relief map, to rough and ready lithographs from frontier presses. read more... Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World  Conceived and developed in partnership with the Bibliothèque nationale de France, this exhibition looks at ideal societies, both imagined and attempted, from classical antiquity through the present day and presents the contrasting notions of paradises lost and ideal cities yet to be created. The exhibition begins with stunning medieval illuminated manuscripts that reveal the sources of Western utopian thought, including classical works about the Golden Age and the ideal republic, early images of Paradise and the Garden of Eden, and medieval travel narratives describing wondrous worlds. Renaissance theories of ideal architecture and the expanding geographical knowledge gained during the Age of Exploration provide a context for the display of a first edition of the first utopian fiction, Thomas More's Utopia (1516). Literary utopias are a significant thread of the exhibition which includes important editions of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Bellamy's Looking Backward, and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Attempts at creating utopias are documented, from the early American colonial experience through 19th-century socialist and religious colonies and into the commune movement of the sixties. The American, French, and Russian Revolutions are represented through prints and broadsides which capture the idealism behind the revolutionary fervor. The exhibit concludes with a look at 20th-century utopias and dystopias, including political and social upheavals, literary imaginings, particularly through the genre of science fiction, and new architectural endeavors. read more... Dystopias and Alternate Realities: Drawings by Charles Addams This display of drawings and New Yorker covers by Charles Addams features bizarre but humorous depictions of different, but not necessarily better, worlds. Included are Adam and Eve as the coming attraction in Eden, a sidewalk wheeler-dealer selling nooses, two archaeologists excavating the Chrysler Building, and, in an updated version of Gulliver's Travels, a surprised astronaut who finds himself tied to the moon and surrounded by tiny aliens. (Complements the exhibition Utopia.) In the Off-season: Drawings of Spring and Summer by Charles Addams New Yorker cartoonist Charles Addams clearly had a singular perception of the rites of spring and the lazy days of summer. The drawings on view reveal Charles Addams's humorous but bizarre take on Valentine's Day, Easter, and golf etiquette. Several of these drawings appeared on the cover of The New Yorker; in honor of the magazine's 75th anniversary, a few of those covers will also be on view. Seeing Is Believing: 700 Years of Scientific and Medical Illustration  Seeing is Believing presents a wide range of subjects including astronomy, mathematics, physics, chemistry, medicine, and natural history, and such significant subtopics as geometry, electricity and magnetism, optics, mechanics, microscopy, and zoology. The exhibition examines this material on three levels: the scientific, by exhibiting many seminal texts; the illustrative, by focusing on the illustrations found in these books; and the artistic, by explaining the various techniques and tools used to render these illustrations. Seeing Is Believing features the extraordinarily rich holdings of The New York Public Library in the field of illustrated science and medicine. The materials on display are drawn primarily from the Library's Rare Books Division and the historical holdings of the Science, Industry and Business Library, with selected items from most of the other divisions of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. In addition, the New York Academy of Medicine is loaning many important works. read more... Drawings by Charles Addams: Adventures in Science and Exploration The drawings on view reveal Charles Addams's singular interpretation of the unexpected, sometimes perilous, and often bizarre discoveries and adventures of scientists and explorers. This ongoing, rotating selection of drawings by Addams features many which 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. In Company: Robert Creeley's Collaborations  By exhibiting the collaborative projects of poet Robert Creeley -- with such well-known and influential visual artists as Georg Baselitz, Francesco Clemente, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Marisol, Susan Rothenberg, and others -- In Company: Robert Creeley's Collaborations encourages viewers to consider profound connections and lasting influences between contemporary visual art and writing. Robert Creeley began his collaborative work in the 1950s with the French painter René Laubiès. Since then he has explored the possibilities of a multi-layered field for poetry, and continues his projects to this day. In Company includes illustrated books, print portfolios, letters, and photographs -- some from the collections of The New York Public Library -- all documenting Creeley's efforts at collaboration with other artists. read more... Sight/Insight: Visual Commentaries on the Physical World Sight/Insight puts a lens to more than 100 contemporary prints, portfolios, and illustrated books by artists who have drawn inspiration from the natural and physical sciences. Included are works by Louise Bourgeois and Kiki Smith, whose involvement in women's issues is reflected in images that suggest medical illustrations, and by Frank Moore whose own health problems inspired Vital Signs, a powerful and cryptic set of etchings that weave together the symbol of DNA cells and chemical formulas. Other artists with works on view include Terry Winters, Lesley Dill, Yukinori Yanagi, Richard Deacon, Mark Francis, Georgia Marsh, Sandy Gellis, Suzanne Anker, Grenville Davey, and Marcus Raetz. The materials are all drawn from the Library's Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs and from the Spencer Collection. Berenice Abbott: Science Photographs Berenice Abbott's scientific photography grew out of her search for a new subject following the conclusion of her Federal Art Project "Changing New York." The approximately 40 prints included in the show are all from the Library's collections and encompass images of equipment, phenomena, and principles. Many of these photographs toured the United States in the late 1950s under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, providing many viewers with their first look at contemporary art photography. Abbott's photograph "Interference of Waves" depicts a spellbinding pattern of colliding and overlapping circular forms. Her close-up view of soap bubbles offers entrance to a strange world of natural geometric construction. Other photos show multiple exposures of items moving through space, an enlarged view of penicillin mold, and beams of light passing through a prism. "Such Friends": The Work of W. B. Yeats  This exhibition surveys the multi-faceted career of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) as poet, playwright, and editor. Yeats's contribution to the literary currents of his time, including the Irish literary renaissance signaled in part by the flowering of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, is strongly represented, as is his involvement in the unprecedented social and political upheaval that resulted in the creation of the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland) in 1922. Through his relationships with such contemporaries as Sean O'Casey, George Bernard Shaw, Maud Gonne, Ezra Pound, J. M. Synge, James Joyce, Lady Gregory, and AE (George) Russell, as well as members of his family, including his ambivalently beloved father, Yeats created a transcendent literary community that nurtured his work. read more... Nabokov Under Glass: A Centennial Exhibition  The most elusive of novelists and men, there sometimes seem to be at least as many Nabokovs as there are readers of his work, or at least twice as many Nabokovs as there are works by him. Yet behind all the masks, there is still only one man, whom the writer once called the "anthropomorphic deity impersonated by me." To celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth (April 23, 1899), this exhibition unveils that impersonation by focusing on the artifacts of Nabokov's artifices, through books, manuscripts, drawings, letters, and notes from the Nabokov archives once assembled atop the Hotel Palace in Montreux, Switzerland, and since 1991 part of The New York Public Library's Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature. The exhibition offers a chronological look at Nabokov's career, ranging from the earliest poems and metrical experiments of his late teens to the butterfly drawings and texts of his later years. read more... Inventing the American Past: The Art of F.O.C. Darley  This exhibition celebrates the work of one of America's greatest 19th-century draughtsmen, the illustrator of Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the popularizer of such national types as the Pilgrim, the Pioneer, the patriotic Minuteman, and the canny Yankee Peddler. So great was Darley's fame in his own lifetime that many books were advertised as "illustrated by Darley." The exhibition explores various aspects of Darley's achievement, from the earthly realism and humor of his early illustrations for popular fiction through the heroic grandeur of the large engravings of historical subjects and the deluxe editions of his later career. Many original drawings, including vibrant and powerful preliminary sketches and highly polished finished designs ready for reproduction, demonstrate Darley's great skill as a draughtsman, while a wide array of wood-engravings, steel engravings, lithographs, and photomechanical reproductions--and one bas-relief--reveal how other artists interpreted his work. read more... Netherlandish Prints at The New York Public Library  The 16th and 17th centuries were a rich period for printmaking in the Netherlands. With the establishment in the 1550s of major publishing houses with an international clientele, the big business of prints in the north was off and running. The prints in this exhibition are broadly representative of that market, which included subject areas ranging from religious representations, portraits, ornament designs, allegory, mythology, ships and seascapes, landscapes, popular prints, and book illustration. Together, these prints provide a fleeting but indelible impression of the knowledge and beliefs of the people who bought and produced them. read more... Drawings by Charles Addams: More Selections from Mother Goose The self-professed "normal American boy" clearly had a singular reading of Mother Goose. The drawings on view reveal Charles Addams's versions of the classic nursery rhymes, featuring peculiar children, a hag as Mother Goose, and a very threatening spider. Order and Disorder: Architectural Transitions in Prints and Photographs  The rubble of buildings destroyed in the San Francisco earthquake and gleaming skyscrapers under construction are among the subject matter of over 150 prints and photographs in this exhibition documenting architectural transition. read more... Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 6.2 MB) Image: Tower Under Construction, Washington Bridge NYC, n.d., etching.by Gottlob Briem (1899-1972). "In thy map securely saile": Maps, Atlases, Charts, and Globes from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection  The exhibit's title, taken from a 17th-century poem by Robert Herrick, describes exploration of unfamiliar territory through maps rather than actual travel. A spectacular collection of maps, atlases, charts, and globes from the 17th and 18th centuries recently donated by the estate of Mr. Lawrence H. Slaughter enables visitors to explore the world as it was viewed at this time. The exhibit draws from the unique and extremely valuable Slaughter collection comprising about 600 maps, 100 atlases, and 50 books of Dutch, French, and primarily English origin. "In thy map securely saile" examines the English mapping scene in the 1700s, Dutch cartography in the early 17th century, and the Dutch influence on English map making, navigation, and the English charting heritage. The exhibit features early images of the New World including the West Indies and Bermuda, the Chesapeake colonies, and the northeastern colonies, and post-Revolutionary maps, with particular emphasis on the planning of the new Capitol in Washington. read more... Drawings by Charles Addams: The East Side, the West Side, and the Other Side Having spent considerable time living and working in New York City, Charles Addams naturally commented on his surroundings. The vampires, witches' broomsticks, and King Kong on view in these drawings make familiar locales and everyday street scenes seem bizarre and reveal the peculiarities of urban living. Eight Million Stories: Twentieth-century New York Life in Prints and Photographs from The New York Public Library  In the Print Gallery: Barney Tobey of The New Yorker  This exhibition on the work of noted New Yorker cartoonist Barney Tobey is drawn primarily from the artist's collection, and focuses on Tobey's wry perspective on contemporary urban life. The collection, which includes sketches, covers from The New Yorker, greeting cards, photographs, and letters, was given to the Library's Manuscripts and Archives Division in 1995. A War in Perspective, 1898-1998: Public Appeals, Memory, and the Spanish-American Conflict  The events of 1898 are known by such diverse names as the Spanish-American War, guerra hispanoamericana, El Desastre del 98, guerra hispano-norteamericana, guerra hispano-cubana-americana, guerra hispano-yanqui, and the "Splendid Little War." This exhibition presents the political and social context and antecedents for the war in the several countries and colonial territories involved (mainly Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Spain, and the United States). One of the central themes of the exhibit is the influence of public appeals and popular expressions in the mass communication of the time. Emphasis is also placed on the participation and expressions of common soldiers, sailors, volunteers, and nationalist fighters of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, as well as some of the political and military decisions that affected this popular participation. The exhibit concludes with an examination of the resulting public or popular memories and commemorations and the changing historical perspectives on the war over time. A Secret Location on the Lower East Side: Adventures in Writing, 1960-1980  This exhibition focuses on the writers, artists, publishers, and communities producing the colorful and inexpensive publications associated with the use of the mimeograph machine from the 1960s through the early 1980s. Writers represented include Anne Waldman, Vito Acconci, Bernadette Mayer, Diane DiPrima, Bill Berkson, Clark Coolidge, Aram Saroyan, Jack Spicer, and Jeff Wright; artists include Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Alex Katz, Joe Brainard, George Schneeman, Philip Guston, Rudy Burckhardt, and others; publishers and magazines include Yugen, Trobar, Angel Hair, Adventures in Poetry, Mag City, Joglars, Lines, and Siamese Banana. read more... "Particular Voices": Robert Giard's Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers Since the mid-1980s, Robert Giard has traveled the country photographing contemporary American gay and lesbian literary figures for a project he calls "Particular Voices." The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs of The New York Public Library is the largest institutional collector of Particular Voices, with 150 of his exquisite black-and-white prints. Coinciding with the recent publication of Particular Voices: Portraits of Gay and Lesbian Writers (MIT Press, 1997), this exhibition presents more than 100 portraits from the Library's collection, accompanied by a selection of related books and manuscripts from other divisions of the Library. Writers featured include Quentin Crisp, Edward Albee, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Audre Lord, Tim Miller, Kenward Elmslie, Lillian Faderman, Jonathan Williams, Tony Kushner, and Kate Millett. Drawings by Charles Addams: Selections from Mother Goose This exhibition featured original drawings for The Charles Addams Mother Goose (New York: Windmill & Dutton, 1967). Subject Matters: Photography, Romana Javitz, and The New York Public Library  Since its founding in 1914, the Picture Collection of The New York Public Library has become an essential resource for New York's creative communities. Subject Matters focuses on the subject-oriented picture collecting philosophy of Romana Javitz, head of the Picture Collection from 1929 to 1968. Javitz was a driving force behind many important photography acquisitions for the Picture Collection, many of which are now housed in the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs. Highlighted in the exhibition are works by Berenice Abbott, Dorothea Lange, and Lewis Hine. A computer component enables viewers to try their hand at electronic picture research. Moving Uptown: 19th-century Views of Manhattan  This exhibition traces, through approximately 140 prints, drawings, and illustrated books, the dramatic growth of 19th-century New York City. A burgeoning population and flourishing businesses quickly pushed farther and farther north the limits of "uptown" as defined in the 18th century. Through bird's-eye panoramas and urban scenes of daily life, drawn primarily from the Stokes Collection of American Historical Prints and the Eno Collection of New York City Views, this exhibition also considers the growing city's needs for city services, from fire and police protection to an ample supply of fresh drinking water. The Romanovs: Their Empire, Their Books  During the 1920s and 1930s, The New York Public Library was one of very few U.S. libraries to purchase nationalized library materials from the former Soviet Union. Preeminent among these purchased collections were those of the Romanov family, whose dynasty ruled the world's largest, most ethnically diverse empire for 300 years. This exhibition examines some of the fundamental preoccupations of, and influences upon, imperial rule, from a unique perspective, namely from an interpretation of the books and manuscripts that filled the shelves of their libraries. This unusual prism provides new insight into how Russia's rulers approached and interpreted issues of empire, religion, peoples, culture, leisure, and war. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 2 MB) Drawings by Charles Addams: Beyond the Grave Exhibitions in the Library's rotating selection of drawings, many of which appeared inside and on the cover of The New Yorker. Tobacco Leaves: Selections from the Collection of George Arents, Jr.  George Arents (1875-1960) was an industrialist and a lifelong collector whose enthusiasm for his subject, and for the hunt, led to a world-class collection of printed works and art objects related to tobacco. Upon his death, he bequeathed to the Library his collection, which contained printed books, manuscripts, all types of ephemera, and a wealth of art work, primarily works on paper, but including netsuke, bronzes, and paintings. A generous endowment has enabled continuous acquisition of tobacco-related works. This exhibition highlights visual materials from the collection including prints, drawings, posters, and photographs. Included are Max Beerbohm's caricature of Lord Queensberry, subject of Oscar Wilde's disastrous 1895 libel suit; a series of three early 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints, one of them depicting Tengu, a notorious folkloric character; and a photograph of a young Bob Dylan, taken by ethnomusicologist John Cohen in 1962. Image: Max Beerbohm. Digital ID: 483417 Dry Drunk: The Culture of Tobacco in 17th- and 18th-Century Europe  Dry Drunk traces the growth of tobacco use in Europe from the early 17th century, when "tobacco drinking" first became a widespread but suspicious leisure activity, into the 18th and early 19th centuries, by which time the rituals and stereotypes of smoking and sniffing tobacco fit well-established, if ever controversial patterns of behavior. The Library's abundant collections of materials relating to tobacco permit coverage of a broad spectrum of historical attitudes toward the herb from the New World, which was seen, variously, as a new medical panacea, a novel alternative or accompaniment to alcohol, or, frequently, as a great medical and social danger. Books and prints on view include some of the earliest reports by New World explorers of tobacco use among American Indians, botanical and medical treatises describing the plant, its therapeutic uses and cultivation, governmental edicts against its use, and ironic and satirical texts and prints. Maiden Voyages: First Books by American Authors  An exhibition of first books by American authors from Phillis Wheatley's Poems to Williams Burroughs's Junkie. Along the way are some books to rediscover, and some that have been forgotten: The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain, The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green, Maggie, A Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane, The Son of the Wolf by Jack London, Three Lives by Gertrude Stein, April Twilights by Willa Cather, Color by Countee Cullen, The Crisis in Industry by Thomas Wolfe, The Key by Eudora Welty, and I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. Maiden Voyages is the third version of an exhibition formerly entitled First Fruits, which was presented by two previous Berg curators in 1951 and 1968. Image: Poems on various subjects, religous and moral by Phillis Wheatley Visionary Daughters of Albion: A Bicentenary Celebration of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley  In the summer of 1797, Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), died shortly after having given birth to the future Mary Shelley, author of the enduring classic Frankenstein (1818) and wife of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. This exhibition offers a glimpse into the lives and works of these two important figures and brings into focus the intellectual milieu in which they flourished. On display are not only their writings--early editions, manuscripts, and correspondence--but also a number of portraits and prints, contemporary and modern, which bring the subjects and their times to life. Image: Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Drawings by Charles Addams Exhibitions in the Library's rotating selection of drawings, many of which appeared inside and on the cover of The New Yorker. Wild New York: The Printmaker and the Natural Landscape from the Age of Exploration Through the Twentieth Century  A selection of prints and drawings from the Library's Print Collection depicting natural landscapes of New York State, including the Catskills, Niagara Falls, and the New York City area. Featured are works by Currier & Ives, William James Bennett, Thomas Kelah Wharton, John Henry Hill, and Mary Nimmo Moran. Richard Tuttle: Books & Prints  Another in the Library's series of exhibitions organized and installed in collaboration with internationally recognized contemporary artists, this display of books and prints is designed to reveal the range of Richard Tuttle's printed art created over the past 30 years. Tuttle's works are informed by his installations, sculpture, drawings, and watercolors, as well as his affinity for poetry, literature, and philosophy, and his fascination with discovering alternatives to the written word. His expanded definition of the book ranges from marks and colors on a few sheets of paper to elaborate productions involving handmade paper, complex printmaking processes, letterpress printing, and unorthodox structures. Let There Be Light: William Tyndale and the Making of the English Bible  At the center of Let There Be Light are the only two known surviving complete copies (from The British Library and the Württembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany) of the first edition (1526) of William Tyndale's New Testament. Tyndale, a Gloucestershire priest, first translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into English and printed it in the early 16th century. He was tried for heresy and executed in 1536. Most of the familiar language of the "authorized" King James Version of 1611--"eat, drink and be merry," "the fat of the land," "the powers that be," "signs of the times," and "fight the good fight," for example--comes directly from Tyndale, whose influence on the life and language of England and the English-speaking world is incalculable. read more... Image: William Tyndale Artful Interiors: Rooms with a View Items ranging from influential architectural source books of the 18th century to a 1928 Sears, Roebuck catalog present a panoramic historical survey of public and domestic interiors in Europe and America from 1750 to 1950. The social and psychological history of interior decoration is revealed through a chronological progression of design ideas, which indicate significant shifts in interior effects, from aristocratic presentations to the homely additions of modern conveniences. The Hand of the Poet - Part Two: E. E. Cummings to Julia Alvarez  Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez Drawings by Charles Addams: Little Devils A rotating selection of drawings, many of which appeared inside and on the cover of The New Yorker. The Romance of the Stone: Lithography, 1796-1825  At the end of the 18th century, an unsuccessful German actor and writer named Alois Senefelder discovered a process for reproducing designs drawn on stone with greasy ink. The initial impact of this new printing method was similar to that of the photocopy machine in the 20th century, and "stone printing" quickly spread throughout Europe and eventually to the United States. It was enthusiastically adopted for printmaking by the rising generation of Romantic artists, who were quick to explore its creative and expressive possibilities. In 1804, the process was rechristened "lithography," from the Greek for "stone writing." This exhibition features more than 200 examples of early lithography--all from the Library's collections--ranging from specimens of early sheet music, caricatures, and printed books through masterpieces by such major figures as Francesco Goya, Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, Benjamin West, Henry Fuseli, Johann Gottfried Schadow, and Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The exhibition is made possible by the generosity of Miriam and Ira D. Wallach. A History of Women Photographers  The Library is the premiere site for the tour of the first large-scale, comprehensive exhibition chronicling women's achievements in photography as a fine art from the beginnings of photography through 1975. Organized by the Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio, the exhibition presents approximately 220 vintage photographs and 30 vintage publications by 219 women, setting the work of better-known women artists within the broader fabric of the accomplishments of the lesser-known female photographers of each era. Photographs in the exhibition are drawn from libraries (including The New York Public Library), museums, historical societies, galleries, and private collections in Europe, Latin America, Canada, Japan, and throughout the United States. A mural-sized timeline and introductory videotape set the art into the context of the historical and political events that affected the lives of women between 1830 and the present. read more... Image: Belle Johnson. Untitled, 1896-1905. Collection of Massillon Museum, Massillon Ohio. Akron Art Museum. Headlines, Deadlines, Bylines: The New York Times Morgue, 1896-1996 Commemorating the anniversary of Adolph S. Och's purchase of The New York Times in 1896, this exhibition surveys the paper's coverage of stories over the last 100 years. Historic materials from the Times's morgue, a vast collection of 22 million clippings and photographs, bring to life momentous events of the century--from the sinking of the Titanic to the bombing of the World Trade Center--and illustrate how changes in the Times have corresponded to the changing world reported in its pages. The exhibition is supported by The New York Times Company Foundation, Inc. The Global Library http://www.nypl.org  The second of The New York Public Library's major Centennial exhibitions, The Global Library http://www.nypl.org examined the digital revolution within the context of a 5,000-year history of communications. The exhibition offered visitors both a guided tour of the World Wide Web, with hands-on access to 14 computer terminals, and a display of more than 60 artifacts from the Library's collections documenting seminal moments in the history of recorded information. The subtitle of the exhibition, http://www.nypl.org, is the address (also known as the URL) of the Library's home page on the World Wide Web, through which, for the first time, users from around the world could visit a New York Public Library exhibition electronically. read more... The Hand of the Poet - Part One: John Donne to T. S. Eliot Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez Books of the Century  The librarians of the Branch and Research Libraries have guided millions of readers since The New York Public Library was founded 100 years ago. For this exhibition, current staff members chose approximately 150 books that have influenced or interpreted the times, or provided enlightenment or pleasure to great numbers of readers. These "books of the century" represent the wide reach of the written word from landmarks of modern literature, such as James Joyce's Ulysses and Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, to books reflecting the horrors of war and totalitarianism, such as Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Some visitors may be surprised and amused to find titles like Peyton Place and Dracula, as well as Gone with the Wind, The Joy of Cooking, and The Politics of Ecstasy. The books on view included rare editions from the Special Collections and well-thumbed books from the stacks, grouped thematically into such sections as Women Rise, Protest & Progress, and Optimism, Joy, Gentility. The original exhibition was augmented by a listing and selective display of the titles most frequently noted in the visitor's comment book. Books of the Century was made possible by Reliance Group Holdings, Inc. read more... The Collecting Adventure, 1895-1995 To make The Research Libraries' collections what they are today, generations of farsighted curators and librarians have actively collected from distant wars and disappearing frontiers, resisted the pressures of censorship and convention, and made persuasive visits to the quiet studies and attics of poets and novelists. The three-part exhibition The Collecting Adventure, 1895-1995 was created to tell how the collections were built and to celebrate those who built them. Part I: Documenting Pop and Avant-Garde, which ran from May 20 to September 1, 1995, showed how the Library has documented modernist culture, sometimes in defiance of convention and established canons. Part II: Preserving Works of Beauty and the Spirit, which ran from September 30, 1995 to February 3, 1996, illuminated the Library's role in acquiring and preserving some of the world's most precious book and manuscript treasures. Part III: Gathering Evidence, which ran from March 2 to May 24, 1996, focused on the Library's diverse and comprehensive collections of sociopolitical materials, which serve the needs of scholar and layman alike. Long before it became fashionable in academia, the Library gathered resources for scholarship on women, immigration, slavery, and gay and lesbian life. This exhibition displayed a wide array of unusual materials, from slave narratives to photographs as social documents to film and video footage about New York. What Price Freedom  The centerpiece of The New York Public Library's Centennial Exhibitions, What Price Freedom highlighted 20 objects from the Library's collections that exemplify moments in history when people took great risks to express themselves freely: from a manuscript of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand to a 1989 handbill distributed by Chinese students, calling for an anti-government hunger strike in Tiananmen Square--from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address to Nelson Mandela's 1985 statement from prison refusing the opportunity to obtain his release in exchange for an endorsement of South African Government. Writers in Wartime: Looking at World War II from the Berg Collection  The 50th anniversaries of V-E Day and V-J Day were noted by this colorful exhibition with a parade of works (diaries, letters, first editions, corrected proofs, flyers, and more). The exhibition stressed reactions to the war in Europe as viewed by poets, playwrights, and novelists, including Thomas Mann, W. H. Auden, Virginia Woolf, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Noel Coward, Lillian Hellman, John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac, and others. A Change of Clothes: Femininity, Fashion and Feminism Can a woman be defined by her clothing? Assault On The Arts  Assault on the Arts examines some of the literature, art, film, and music that was censored and banned by the Nazis, along with works that were sponsored and glorified. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 4.1 MB) NEW YORK: The Prints of Reginald Marsh  New York City was Reginald Marsh's favorite subject. The city in all its aspects fascinated him-the Manhattan skyline, ringed by water and bridges, its crowed neighborhood streets, nightclubs and dance halls, the Metropolitan Opera and burlesque houses, the subways and various entertainments offered at Coney Island. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 1.32 MB) New York American Historical Prints  The Prints Room of The New York Public Library contains a rich pictorial record of New York City's Development from the seventeenth century through the nineteenth century. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 2.2 MB) Victorian Ornament: Excerpts from Design History  The human desire to decorate objects dates back to prehistoric times. Ornament, a form of superimposed decoration, has therefore always been an important part of design history. During the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), British ornamental design had a wide impact on European and American decoration. This exhibition displays key texts and illustrations that reveal major developments in Victorian design theory and practice from London’s Great Exhibition of 1851 to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Victorian ornament, derived from a profusion of historical sources, was used on every kind of object, including bookbindings, ceramics, clothing, furniture, metalwork, textiles, and wallpaper. Exhibition Brochure (PDF - 2 MB) |
