The New York Public Library offers free major exhibitions and special displays at three of its research library locations—the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Library for the Performing Arts, and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture—and community showcases at many of its branch locations throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island.

Current Exhibitions

  • Subversion & The Art of Slavery Abolition

    Now–Ongoing
    Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
    This exhibition highlights several of the ways that abolitionists engaged with the arts to agitate for enslaved people’s liberty in the…

  • Winter Wonderland: George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®

    Now–January 31, 2021
    The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
    It is so much a part of the holidays in New York, that it is now hard to imagine a time when George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker® did not…

  • Freedom's Founders

    Now–Ongoing
    Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
    The Fourth of July inspires both celebration and reflection. Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence proclaimed “life, liberty,…

  • Femmetography: The Gaze Shifted

    Now–Ongoing
    Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
    In this exhibition, Femmetography: The Gaze Shifted, the 2019 Teen Curators examine the Black feminine gaze using the first book…

  • Traveling While Black: A Century of Pleasure & Pain & Pilgrimages

    Now–Ongoing
    Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
    Traveling While Black, the Exhibition Since the start of their experience in the Americas, Black people have been defined by travel,…

Community Showcases

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Past Exhibitions

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    All This Mine Alone: Lady Gregory and the Irish Literary Revival

    Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
    This first major exhibition of Augusta Gregory's work and art foregrounds her creative evolution and independent achievements, along with…

    Public Audiences: Photographs by George Joseph

    The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
    In 1957, Robert Moses, New York City Department of Parks Commissioner, granted Joseph Papp and the “New York Summer Shakespeare Festival” a…

    Made at NYPL

    Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
    Writers, scholars, artists, and innovators from around the world come to delve into NYPL’s deep and sweeping repository of more than 46…