The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum Once library of financier Pierpont Morgan—now a museum, research library, music venue, architectural
(1857)

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today it is a museum, independent research library, music venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. A century after its founding, the Morgan maintains a unique position in the cultural life of New York City and is considered one of its greatest treasures.

Where's your favorite train station? This is ours right now. The expansion of the railway system made the wider French l...
08/25/2023

Where's your favorite train station? This is ours right now. The expansion of the railway system made the wider French landscape accessible to both artists and day-trippers alike, and Fontainebleau became a popular destination when the tracks connecting it to Paris were completed in 1847. Charles-Francois Daubigny created illustrations for travel guides, books, and magazines in addition to working as a landscape painter. This sketchbook documents trips made between Paris, Rouen, and Le Havre. His silvery pencil lines captured both the architecture and lively human bustle of the train stations, waterways, cities, and landscapes he passed through, suggesting the excitement of this still-new mode of exploration.
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Charles-François Daubigny (1817 - 1878), Sketchbook, ca. 1847. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Karen B. Cohen in memory of Charles Ryskamp, 2010.105. Photography by Graham S. Haber







08/24/2023

Tickets for our 2023-2024 music concerts are now on sale! Learn more and book your tickets at the link in bio or visit themorgan.org/programs.

Today, we’re just going with the flow… In the mid-1970s, Bridget Riley shifted her focus from vertical bands to undulati...
08/23/2023

Today, we’re just going with the flow… In the mid-1970s, Bridget Riley shifted her focus from vertical bands to undulating, twisting ribbons of color: “By using twisted curves I could bunch up color sensations in a way that went further than the lateral groupings. . . . When colors are twisted along the rise and fall of a curve their juxtapositions change continually. There are innumerable sequences, each of which throws up a different sensation. From these I build up clusters which then flow one into another almost imperceptibly.”
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Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Red, Green and Blue Twisted Curves, 1979. Collection of the artist. © Bridget Riley 2023. All rights reserved.




After settling in Paris in 1912, Blaise Cendrars befriended the painter Robert Delaunay, inspired by the artist’s dynami...
08/22/2023

After settling in Paris in 1912, Blaise Cendrars befriended the painter Robert Delaunay, inspired by the artist’s dynamic use of color and by a shared obsession with the Eiffel Tower. Many Parisians viewed the structure, completed in 1889, as an industrial blot on the landscape, unsuitable for artistic subject matter. In dozens of works, however, Delaunay rendered it vertiginously from multiple perspectives, introducing time, motion, and depth into his Cubist practice. For Cendrars, the tower symbolized the profound transformations of the modern world. It figures in his poems as a gallows, a palm tree, a paint brush dipped in light, and an embodiment of technology and language, with its antenna radioing Morse code across the sea.
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Robert Delaunay (1885–1941)
The Tower, 1911, dated 1910. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund, 1935; 235.1935. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.





Congratulations to Linnaea Tillett on receiving the Lumen Award of Excellence for her work designing the lighting for ou...
08/21/2023

Congratulations to Linnaea Tillett on receiving the Lumen Award of Excellence for her work designing the lighting for our newly restored historic Library! Lumen-winning projects drive the state of art in lighting design excellence. They consistently demonstrate the best of what lighting design can do for architecture and placemaking.

Take a look at Linnaea Tillet's work in these photos!

Images: J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library and the Morgan Garden, at night © Brett Beyer, 2022.

The Bouquechardière is a universal history written between 1416 and 1422 by Jean de Courcy, a retired knight. Nicknamed ...
08/21/2023

The Bouquechardière is a universal history written between 1416 and 1422 by Jean de Courcy, a retired knight. Nicknamed after his personal estate, Bourg-Achard, de Courcy’s Bouquechardière is a rare scholarly undertaking by a private individual for his own pleasure. Drawing on myth, legend, history, and the Bible, the author sought to reveal the historical importance and moral significance of ancient events. Shown here is Book III on the Trojan diaspora. The miniature depicts the building of Venice by Helenus, Sicambria by Antenor, Carthage by Dido, and Rome by Romulus. For medieval people, Troy marked the start of civil history: its fall and the founding of major European cities by the heroic survivors of Troy or descendants were fundamental touchstones to their pasts.
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Jean de Courcy, Bouquechardière (vol. I), in French. France, Rouen, 1460-80, iIlluminated by one of the Masters of Margaret of York, with heraldry and blue added ca. 1520. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.214, fol. 134r. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2017.




Nora Thompson Dean corresponded with many people interested in the Lenape past and present. In this letter to the histor...
08/19/2023

Nora Thompson Dean corresponded with many people interested in the Lenape past and present. In this letter to the historian Francis Jennings, author of The Invasion of America: Indians, Colonialism, and the Cant of Conquest (1975), she describes the Ohtas (Doll Being), one of the Manëtu (Lesser Spirits) in the Lenape spiritual world. Dean recalls her involvement as a girl in an annual dance for Otha and then handily dispatches a rumor about the doll’s powers that she heard from a museum employee—part of the perpetual work of confronting the inventions and mystifications about Native American life that she and many other Native people have to contend with.

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Nora Thompson Dean (1907–1984)
Letter to Francis Jennings, 9 April 1968
Courtesy James Rementer

This painting was long thought to be a figure study for Day. A recent investigation established that it is instead a fra...
08/18/2023

This painting was long thought to be a figure study for Day. A recent investigation established that it is instead a fragment from an early version of the painting, which Hodler cut up and reworked to sell the parts individually. On the right, under the green paint, the elbow and feet of a neighboring figure are still visible. That figure appears on another fragment, now in the Schindler collection at the Musée Jenisch Vevey. The two parts are reunited here for the first time since Hodler cut the canvas apart. No other fragments from this painting have been identified.

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)
Figure Study for “Day,” ca. 1898–1899.
Musée Jenisch Vevey, Donation Rudolf Schindler. © Musée Jenisch Vevey

In our book, imperfections make a thing more beautiful! For Bridget Riley, it is important that her paintings are handma...
08/17/2023

In our book, imperfections make a thing more beautiful! For Bridget Riley, it is important that her paintings are handmade, but their surfaces are typically pristine and smooth. This is true of “Movement in Squares” (1961), which appeared in Riley’s first ever solo show, held in 1962 at Gallery One, London. By contrast, pencil is visible beneath the imperfectly applied black gouache in this study, and pinholes on each corner reveal that she hung it up in her studio as a reference.
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Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Study for "Movement in Squares", 1961. Collection of the artist. © Bridget Riley 2023. All rights reserved.




Did you know that you could use glass as a negative to make prints? Beginning in the 1850s, Camille Corot experimented w...
08/16/2023

Did you know that you could use glass as a negative to make prints? Beginning in the 1850s, Camille Corot experimented with cliché-verre, or “glass plate,” a reproductive print that is a hybrid of drawing, printmaking, and photography. He was tutored in the method by photographer Adalbert Cuvelier, an originator of cliché-verre in France and father of Eugène, who in turn taught the technique to Daubigny, Huet, Millet, and Rousseau.

The process involves coating a glass plate in printer’s ink or photographic emulsion, scratching a linear image into the coating, and printing the plate on photographic paper. This drawing is preparatory for one such print. Corot was so deeply engaged with the potential of this technique that it comprised two thirds of his entire graphic output.
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Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796 - 1875), Landscape with Two Trees, 1874. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Karen B. Cohen, 2022.322. Photography by Janny Chiu






Jean Cocteau’s “C**k and Harlequin,” a poetic manifesto for the musicians he and Blaise Cendrars promoted, was the first...
08/15/2023

Jean Cocteau’s “C**k and Harlequin,” a poetic manifesto for the musicians he and Blaise Cendrars promoted, was the first title in Cendrars’s literary series Collection des tracts. (Guillaume Apollinaire, the author of the second booklet in the series, would die while his book was in proofs.) Cendrars’s typographic imagination informed his innovative approach to the series’ uniform cover and title-page design. Making use of oversize letterforms intended only for posters, he designed the cover on extra-large paper, then had it photographically reduced to fit the small format.
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Jean Cocteau (1889–1963), Le coq et l’arlequin, (C**k and Harlequin), Paris: Éditions de la Sirène, 1918. The Morgan Library & Museum, James Fuld Collection. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2023.






This eleventh-century manuscript contains Gospel readings for use in celebrating Mass. The high quality of its script an...
08/14/2023

This eleventh-century manuscript contains Gospel readings for use in celebrating Mass. The high quality of its script and illumination suggests that it was created at Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. The main decoration of this lectionary features five large miniatures marking major textual divisions. Four of these contain portraits of the evangelists from whose Gospel the readings of each division were taken. Shown here is the portrait of Mark, introducing the lessons for Lent and Holy Week. According to Byzantine convention, Mark was always painted as a dark-haired, bearded, and swarthy young man. His writing pose can be traced back to classical antiquity. His elongated figure and schematized drapery characterize Byzantine illumination in the second half of the 11th century, which developed from the 10th-century classicizing Macedonian Renaissance.
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Gospel Lectionary, in Greek, end of the 11th century. The Morgan Library and Museum, M. 639 fol. 218.



Hot off the presses!The catalogue for our current exhibition “Ferdinand Hodler: Drawings—Selections from the Musée Jenis...
08/13/2023

Hot off the presses!

The catalogue for our current exhibition “Ferdinand Hodler: Drawings—Selections from the Musée Jenisch Vevey” (on view until October 1, 2023) is out now! Designed by Barbara Glauber of Heavy Meta, printed by Conti Tipocolor, and published by the Morgan Library & Museum, this beautiful volume offers an in-depth look at the Swiss artist’s work as a draftsman, and the vital role that drawing played in Hodler’s refinement of ideas and his obsessive search for forms.

The book features essays by Isabelle Dervaux, Acquavella Curator of the Morgan Library & Museum, and art historians Emmanuelle Neukomm and Oskar Bätschmann. It delves into, among other subjects, Hodler’s predilection for uniformity and symmetry, which informed many of his compositions, including the work featured on the cover, a study for the painting “View into Infinity.”

From Dervaux’s essay, “An Obsessive Draftsman”:
“The simplicity of [his drawings] matches the clarity of Hodler’s theory of ‘parallelism,’ which he developed in the 1890s and to which he adhered for the remainder of his life. Resting on two basic concepts, repetition and symmetry, it expresses his belief that art should reflect the order of nature, which, he asserted, is ruled by unity. In this view, the resemblance among things and human beings is more important than their differences.”

Purchase this catalogue online at the link below or in store at the Morgan Shop.

https://www.themorgan.org/shop/ferdinand-hodler-drawings-selections-musee-jenisch-vevey
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Photography by Janny Chiu

08/12/2023

Isabelle Dervaux, our Acquavella Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings, discusses modern art pioneer Ferdinand Hodler, who created works that range from vast symbolist compositions to intimate, realist portraits and nearly abstract landscape paintings. Our current exhibition “Ferdinand Hodler: Drawings—Selections from the Musée Jenisch Vevey” focuses on the role of drawing in his practice, from quick compositional sketches to elaborate oil studies. Most of the drawings Hodler produced were preparatory studies for his large-scale figure compositions; these offer a fascinating account of his working process, which involved technical experiments with imprints, tracing, and collages. A few of his portrait drawings will also be featured, including a poignant series in which he recorded the illness and death of his lover Valentine Godé-Darel.
Video by SandenWolff.
HodlerDrawings

We are looking for students to participate in our College Ambassador program. this fall! As an ambassador, students will...
08/10/2023

We are looking for students to participate in our College Ambassador program. this fall! As an ambassador, students will promote the Morgan as not only a museum and library, but also as a place for research, education, and entertainment. Students will promote and spread awareness of the Morgan on their respective campuses and social media platforms.
Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to: communication with relevant department heads at each university, the completion of surveys related to programming, attendance at scheduled museum events, brainstorming ideas to increase attendance among college students, and various social media requirements. This opportunity is open to students currently enrolled at Columbia University/Barnard, Fordham University, New York University, The Fashion Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, and The City University of New York Graduate School with interest in a relevant background or area of study.

Send us a DM if you are interested!

World Indigenous Peoples Day celebrates and honors indigenous peoples around the globe, their histories and cultures. As...
08/09/2023

World Indigenous Peoples Day celebrates and honors indigenous peoples around the globe, their histories and cultures. As part of our collaboration with the Lenape Center and Hudson Valley Farm Hub for the exhibition "Nora Thompson Dean: Lenape Teacher and Herbalist," we are proud to share the native plants that have now been returned to their native soil. Pictured here, you can see Sèhsapsink and Kèskùnthàk.

The seeds for these Sèhsapsink (Sehsapsing Lenape Corn) plants were saved by Nora Thompson Dean’s mother, Sarah Wilson Thompson, who brought them to Oklahoma from the Lenape homeland, Lenapehoking. Thompson’s stewardship helped preserve this plant species, continuing a Lenape tradition in which women have historically overseen farming.

Kèskùnthàk (Nanticoke “Greenburst” Squash) is a winter squash that was originally cultivated by the Nanticoke people, who lived in southern Delaware and along the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. In the seventeenth century, when they began to move north and unite with Lenape communities in New Jersey, the Nanticoke brought their extraordinarily diverse and delicious squash with them.

Come see how these plants have flourished every Friday, Saturday and Sunday through October 29.




Images: "Nora Thompson Dean: Lenape Teacher and Herbalist", Garden. Photography by Janny Chiu, June 2023.

Morgan Russell’s Synchromism emphasized the locomotion of the viewer’s eye, which generated “color rhythms” by moving ac...
08/08/2023

Morgan Russell’s Synchromism emphasized the locomotion of the viewer’s eye, which generated “color rhythms” by moving across the canvas from color to color, like a musician reading music. Blaise Cendrars and Russell planned to collaborate on a Synchromist ballet. Russell was preoccupied, however, with inventing a light machine to transform the chromatic vision of his paintings into a public spectacle. Neither the ballet nor the light machine was ever realized.

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Morgan Russell (1886–1953), Color Form Synchromy (Eidos), 1922–23. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. Wendell T. Bush Fund; 21.1951. Courtesy of the Joyce family estate, Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY.





Each of the four Gospels in this manuscript is preceded by a “portrait” of the appropriate evangelist. These portraits w...
08/07/2023

Each of the four Gospels in this manuscript is preceded by a “portrait” of the appropriate evangelist. These portraits were inspired by late antique models, so here, Luke wears a Roman toga. The basket next to him contains scrolls, the standard book form in antiquity. Facing the portrait are the opening words of Luke’s Gospel. This manuscript was made around 860 at Reims (France), and it was written entirely in gold ink.
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MS M.728, fol. 94v, Evangelist Portrait of Luke, Gospel book, Reims, France, ca. 860. The Morgan Library & Museum. Photography by Graham S. Haber.



Hodler often cut out figures from one drawing and pasted them onto another to explore different compositions. Here, he s...
08/05/2023

Hodler often cut out figures from one drawing and pasted them onto another to explore different compositions. Here, he seems to have been working out the placement of the female figure within a field of flowers—one of his favorite ways to symbolize the unity of humankind and nature. The identical flowers illustrate Hodler’s idea that repetition conveys “an impression of unity that will charm you. . . .The effect is greater, the impression stronger than if there were a mix of flowers of different colors and shapes.”

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918)
Study for “Female Eurhythmy” or “Emotion,” 1895–1896 or after 1902.
Musée Jenisch Vevey, Donation Rudolf Schindler. © Musée Jenisch Vevey

Since the early 1960s, Bridget Riley has relied on assistants to execute her paintings. “Holding myself at a certain dis...
08/04/2023

Since the early 1960s, Bridget Riley has relied on assistants to execute her paintings. “Holding myself at a certain distance enables me to be more engaged, not less,” she has said. In a sense, Riley placed herself in the role of the viewer, noting, “The spectator who looks at my work is part of the work itself.” While Riley’s hand is not present in the final paintings, they are made possible through the processes of exploration seen here in her studies: “I have to build up a bank of visual information first—about colors, forms, proportions, directions, etc. This is the essential basis to my work.”
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Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Study for "Polarity", 1964. Collection of the artist. © Bridget Riley 2023. All rights reserved.




Before he fell under the influence of Theodore Rousseau and followed him into the forest of Fontainebleau, Narcisse Virg...
08/03/2023

Before he fell under the influence of Theodore Rousseau and followed him into the forest of Fontainebleau, Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña decorated porcelain and painted sentimental figures. In Fontainebleau, he shifted his focus to the wild, untouched parts of the forest, recognizing that nature contained a drama of its own. Diaz’s commercial success as a landscape painter allowed him to extend aid to fellow Barbizon artists like François Millet and Théodore Rousseau.
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Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807 - 1876), A Path Leading through Rocks and Trees under a Brooding Sky, ca. 1870. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Karen B. Cohen, 2022.331. Photography by Janny Chiu





Marc Chagall’s freeform style and dreamlike paintings, grounded in the everyday life of Jewish people in Russian village...
08/02/2023

Marc Chagall’s freeform style and dreamlike paintings, grounded in the everyday life of Jewish people in Russian villages, rebelled against both conservative aesthetics and those of the establishment avant-garde. Chagall and Blaise Cendrars became close friends at La Ruche. The poet promoted Chagall’s early career and assigned titles to many of his iconic works, including “I and the Village” (1911), reproduced here in black and white. In Cendrars’s facing text, translated into German, the poet praises Chagall for his unmediated rendering of reality—as if he painted a cow with a cow, not with a brush— something Cendrars aspired to in his poetic diction.
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Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961), “Marc Chagall,” In Expressionismus, die Kunstwende (Berlin: Verlag Der Sturm, 1918). The Morgan Library & Museum, purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund; 2022, PML 198778. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2023. © Blaise Cendrars/Succession Cendrars, © Marc Chagall / Artists Rights Society (ARS ), New York.






The Hours of Catherine of Cleves is considered one of the greatest Dutch illuminated manuscripts in the world. Its 157 m...
07/31/2023

The Hours of Catherine of Cleves is considered one of the greatest Dutch illuminated manuscripts in the world. Its 157 miniatures are by the gifted Master of Catherine of Cleves (active ca. 1435-60), who is named after this book. The left side, which preceded the Saturday Mass of the Virgin, is a Crucifixion featuring, in addition to Christ, God the Father, Mary, Catherine of Cleves herself, and her patron saint. Catherine prays to the Virgin, who exposes her breast and intercedes with her son, who in turn, in the name of his wounds, intercedes with God the Father. The right miniature shows the Virgin and Child in a grape arbor. A hovering angel holds a scroll inscribed with the Introit of the Mass, “Hail, holy Mother, who brought forth the King.” Christ and angels gather grapes, a clear reference to the Eucharist.
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Hours of Catherine of Cleves, ca. 1440. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.917/945, pp.160-161. Image courtesy of Faksimile Verlag Luzern.





Their gestures and motions evoke contemporary dance. Indeed, Hodler admired the work of avant-garde choreographers who e...
07/29/2023

Their gestures and motions evoke contemporary dance. Indeed, Hodler admired the work of avant-garde choreographers who explored the body’s natural movements, as opposed to the conventional poses of classical ballet. Combining such fluent body language with his keen sense of rhythm, he sought to convey graphically a pantheistic sense of unity and harmony
with nature.

Painted for the stairwell of the new Kunsthaus in Zurich, View into Infinity was the last commission Hodler completed before his death. Free to choose the subject, he opted, once again, for a symmetrical, friezelike arrangement of five women in an open space. He rendered the women’s bodies naturalistically but presented them in similar clothes and poses, making them appear more like allegorical figures than actual people.

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Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Study of Hand for "View into Infinity," 1915-1916. Musée Jenisch Vevey, Donation Rudolf Schindler. © Musée Jenisch Vevey

Battista Agnese, a Genoese cartographer based in Venice, produced some of the most beautiful and accurate coastal atlase...
07/28/2023

Battista Agnese, a Genoese cartographer based in Venice, produced some of the most beautiful and accurate coastal atlases of the sixteenth century. Intended for educated readers, his atlases helped codify and disseminate a new understanding of the globe, including recent cartographical information about the Americas. This chart depicts the Atlantic Ocean with Central and South America on the left and Africa on the right. Brazil and Peru are clearly marked, but the Yucatán is shown as an island, rather than a peninsula, and the southwestern coast of South America (present-day Chile) is left blank. Lines radiate from the central compass rose, evoking the winds that help carry travelers to harbors across the seas.

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Battista Agnese (1514–1564), Portolan Atlas, Italy, Venice, ca. 1545–64. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan, 1911; MS M.460, fols. 5v–6r

Beginning in 1960, Riley’s work turned toward pure abstraction. Although it marked a stark departure from her depictions...
07/27/2023

Beginning in 1960, Riley’s work turned toward pure abstraction. Although it marked a stark departure from her depictions of figures and landscapes, this new direction was in fact a solution to Riley’s earlier search for a pictorial structure as exciting as the visual experience of nature itself. First in black and white, and later in gray tones, she developed a strong style that came to define the international Op art movement. By subtly modulating simple geometric shapes and patterns, Riley devised compositions that had startling, even destabilizing, effects on viewers.
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Bridget Riley (b. 1931), Study for "Shuttle", 1964. Collection of the artist. © Bridget Riley 2023. All rights reserved.




Théodore Rousseau visited Normandy in 1831, following in the footsteps of the watercolorists of the previous generation....
07/26/2023

Théodore Rousseau visited Normandy in 1831, following in the footsteps of the watercolorists of the previous generation. His pen lines here are so daring and free that some have suggested the view is a later remembrance of these coastal cliffs drawn in the 1850s. The quivering contours and scribbled shading lends a sense of speed to the composition, as though the sky or weather were rapidly changing. It was this type of mark making that elicited Vincent van Gogh’s appreciation for Rousseau’s drawings.
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Théodore Rousseau (1812 - 1867), Cliffs in Normandy, 1831-1832. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Karen B. Cohen, 2022.346. Photography by Janny Chiu.





Cendrars referenced both still and motion pictures in the book “Kodak (Documentary),” which he described as a collectio...
07/25/2023

Cendrars referenced both still and motion pictures in the book “Kodak (Documentary),” which he described as a collection of “verbal photographs.” Similar to creating photocollages from found images, Cendrars composed the poems in Kodak by cutting up and rearranging sentences taken from two other authors’ texts—one about the disparities of American wealth and poverty, and the second presenting an elephant hunter’s critique of colonialism in the Belgian Congo. Cendrars, however, did not reveal his methods or sources. The resulting hybrid work subverts the notion that so-called documentary film and photography capture objective reality.

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Blaise Cendrars (1887–1961), Kodak (Documentaires), Cover illustration by Frans Masereel (1889–1972). Paris: Librairie Stock, 1924. The Morgan Library & Museum, purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2022; PML 198919. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2023. © 2023 Frans Masereel / Artists Rights Society (ARS ), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Germany







The seated Matthew consults the manuscript proffered by his symbol, an angel. The implication is clear: Matthew’s Gospel...
07/24/2023

The seated Matthew consults the manuscript proffered by his symbol, an angel. The implication is clear: Matthew’s Gospel is the word of God, delivered directly to him from heaven. This miniature has been meticulously painted – no doubt with the aid of magnification (the evangelist himself wears glasses). This is the work of Barthelemy van Eyck, who was both an illuminator and panel painter. He collaborated on this Book of Hours with another artist, the Frenchman Enguerrand Quarton. Because the manuscript remains unfinished -- here, the border figures are drawn but not painted -- it provides a fascinating record of the artists' working procedures.
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"Unfinished Hours," in Latin, 1440-50. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.358, fol. 17r. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2016.




In the final stage of preparation for his monumental paintings, Hodler made full-size drawings of details such as heads ...
07/22/2023

In the final stage of preparation for his monumental paintings, Hodler made full-size drawings of details such as heads and hands, working directly in oil to try out the flesh colors, highlights, and shading. Tracing paper allowed him to easily transfer an image from one support to another.

Painted for the stairwell of the new Kunsthaus in Zurich, View into Infinity was the last commission Hodler completed before his death. Free to choose the subject, he opted, once again, for a symmetrical, friezelike arrangement of five women in an open space. He rendered the women’s bodies naturalistically but presented them in similar clothes and poses, making them appear more like allegorical figures than actual people.

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Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Study of Head for "View into Infinity," 1913-1915. Musée Jenisch Vevey, Donation Rudolf Schindler. © Musée Jenisch Vevey

Today marks Ernest Hemingway's 124th birthday! Recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, Hemingway was an America...
07/21/2023

Today marks Ernest Hemingway's 124th birthday! Recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature, Hemingway was an American novelist and journalist known for his distinctly economic prose style. Shown here are his dog tags and his official certificate of identity from when he was an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross during WWI. He was severely injured in Italy, and fell in love with Red Cross nurse Agnes von Kurowsky during his recovery. These experiences would have a lasting impact on Hemingway’s writing during the interwar period, fostering an ongoing exploration of masculinity that persists throughout his work.
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A range of items from the exhibition “Ernest Hemingway: Between Two Wars”, from the author’s dog tags and official Certificate of Identity to original manuscript pages. © The Morgan Library & Museum. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Photography by Graham S. Haber, 2015.




George Sand—the masculine pen name adopted by the French woman Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (1804–1876)—was...
07/19/2023

George Sand—the masculine pen name adopted by the French woman Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francueil (1804–1876)—was one of the most renowned European authors of the mid-nineteenth century. Her novels addressed issues of social class and the plight of the laborer, often couched within stories of love and marriage. She placed many of her characters in rural settings like her native Berry in central France. Off the page, Sand championed women’s rights and advocated for the working class, the poor, and a French republic. Highly independent, she dressed in men’s clothing (without filing for the required permit) in order to get around Paris more easily, smoked ci**rs, and enjoyed several romantic relationships, including one with the composer Frédéric Chopin. Her network encompassed writers, musicians, and artists, such as Théodore Rousseau.
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George Sand (1804-1876), Rocky Landscape with Red Tree, 1874-76. Watercolor with collaged plant matter. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of Karen B. Cohen in Honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2022.351:2. Photography by Janny Chiu.





This Persian “Manafi-al Hayawan,” or Bestiary, is a treatise on animals and their medicinal uses. One of 44 large illust...
07/17/2023

This Persian “Manafi-al Hayawan,” or Bestiary, is a treatise on animals and their medicinal uses. One of 44 large illustrations, this pair of interlocking and affectionate royal elephants can be recognized by the caps and bells on their feet. The medicinal uses include elephant broth, good for colds and asthma, and elephant droppings, for preventing conception. Reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of the Mongol court, the illuminators of this manuscript were influenced by Chinese styles of painting.
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Abu Saíd Ibn Bakhtishu, Manafi al-Hayawan (Uses of Animals), in Persian, ca. 1300. The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.500, fol. 13r. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2017






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Can’t wait until your next trip to New York to see our historic library? Take a walk through our stunning McKim, Mead, and White-designed building with the incredible 3D renderings on our website! Explore each room and our brand new garden through the link in our bio. #MorganLibrary #NYC #Architecture

Our building is restored and our new garden is complete! . Since embarking on this project in 2016, we have had an incredible team of experts working diligently to restore our building and give a new life to the surrounding site. The new garden is open until October 9! We hope you will come by and enjoy our beautiful outdoor space! The restoration project included: a comprehensive restoration of the façade with extensive repairs to the loggia; a roof replacement; foundation waterproofing; cleaning and restoration of the bronze and wooden front doors; conservation of of the bronze fence lining the perimeter of the site; and the cleaning and repair to the sculptures that flank the loggia entrance and the lionesses that guard our library building. As part of the project, we added a new garden to the site surrounding the library and a new lighting design to show off our newly restored building! We are grateful to the highly-skilled team that made this project possible and to the teams who helped us create ongoing maintenance plans. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. Video by SandenWolff #morganlibrary #nyc #architecture

Erica Cialella, Belle da Costa Green Curatorial Fellow, and Philip Palmer, Robert H. Taylor Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, discuss Belle da Costa Greene’s enduring legacy and their ongoing research on her work as the director of the Morgan Library and Museum. Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950) began working as J. Pierpont Morgan’s librarian in 1905. After Morgan’s death in 1913, Greene maintained a similar role as the institution’s first director, opening the private treasure-house to the public in 1924. Her professional correspondence, catalogued only recently, offers new insight into how Greene maneuvered in a world of books and manuscripts dominated by men. Greene and the women she hired were respected and widely regarded as experts in their field. Above all, these women of the Morgan were ambitious, committed to the value of their work, and well attuned to their boss’s high expectations. Greene was not only a director but also a mentor and friend. Her story and legacy will be the subject of a major exhibition in 2024 to mark the Morgan’s centenary as a public institution. “Belle da Costa Greene and the Women of the Morgan” is now on view. Video by SandenWolff. #MorganLibrary #BelledaCostaGreene

Virtual Advanced Look -- She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia
Virtual Advanced Look -- She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia

She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C. will open at the Morgan on Friday, October 14. Listen as Sidney Babcock, Jeannette and Jonathan Rosen Curator and Department Head of Ancient Western Asian Seals and Tablets provides an introduction to the exhibition. She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C. brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of artworks that capture rich and shifting expressions of women’s lives in ancient Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium B.C. These works bear testament to women’s roles in religious contexts as goddesses, priestesses, and worshippers as well as in social, economic and political spheres as mothers, workers, and rulers. One particularly remarkable woman who wielded considerable religious and political power was the high priestess and poet Enheduanna (ca. 2300 B.C.), the earliest-named author in world literature. Bringing together a spectacular collection of her texts and images, this exhibition celebrates her timeless poetry and abiding legacy as an author, priestess, and woman. Virtual field trips are available for school, camp, and community groups. She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C. is made possible through the generosity of Jeannette and Jonathan Rosen. Additional support is provided by an anonymous donor in memory of Dr. Edith Porada, the Andrew W. Mellon Research and Publications Fund, Becky and Tom Fruin, Laurie and David Ying, and by a gift in memory of Max Elghanayan, with assistance from Lauren Belfer and Michael Marissen, and from an anonymous donor.

Advanced Look | Ashley Bryan & Langston Hughes: Sail Away and The Little Prince: Taking Flight
Advanced Look | Ashley Bryan & Langston Hughes: Sail Away and The Little Prince: Taking Flight

This two part virtual event offers a sneak peek at two upcoming exhibitions at the Morgan Library & Museum. Ashley Bryan & Langston Hughes: Sail Away Sal Robinson, Lucy Ricciardi Assistant Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts The Little Prince: Take Flight Philip Palmer, Robert H. Taylor Curator and Department Head of Literary and Historical Manuscripts

George Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawing
George Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawing

George Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawing will open at the Morgan on Friday, October 21. Listen to Isabelle Dervaux, Acquavella Curator and Department Head of Modern and Contemporary Drawing, as she provides an introduction to the exhibition One of the most celebrated contemporary German artists, Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) gained international recognition in the 1960s for revitalizing figurative painting. This exhibition celebrates the gift from Baselitz to the Morgan of fifty drawings covering the span of his entire career. On display will be examples from the iconic Heroes series and fractured drawings of the mid-1960s; landscape and figure drawings from the 1970s, when Baselitz began turning his images upside-down to emphasize their structure and materiality over their subject; colorful pastels and watercolors from the 1980s and 90s; and a group of Remix drawings from the last twenty years, in which Baselitz revisits themes from his early works. Organized in collaboration with the Albertina Museum in Vienna, which is the recipient of a similar gift from the artist, the exhibition will include about sixty-five drawings. Combining sheets from both donations, it will present a retrospective of Baselitz’s artistic development and highlight the central role drawing plays in his practice. Georg Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawings is organized by the Morgan Library & Museum, New York and the Albertina, Vienna. This exhibition is made possible by the Jerome L. Greene Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte.

Aside from an incredible collection of books, what does the J. Pierpont Morgan Library have in common with the New York Public Library (NYPL) on Fifth Avenue? . Our lions! The lionesses that flank the original entrance to our Library building were created by the acclaimed sculptor, Edward Clark Potter, who also created the lions at the entrance of the NYPL. The lions at the NYPL were completed in 1911, several years after our library and lionesses were completed and remain an important marker of our library building today. . During the restoration of our library building, our lionesses also received some special treatment. After spending several months in hibernation protected by protective boxes, our duo received a thorough cleaning, followed by a surface treatment to ensure they are protected for years to come. Both of our lionesses had their ears renewed through a hand-carved dutchman repair to fill loss that occurred over the years. The restoration has given a new life to our lionesses, who are ready to continue guarding our building for years to come. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #MorganLibrary #NYC #Architecture

The final weekend to see the stunning drawings by Beat-era artist Rick Barton! “Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton” closes Sunday, September 11th. Very little is known about Barton, who, between 1958 and 1962, created hundreds of drawings of striking originality. His subjects range from the intimacy of his room to the architecture of Mexican cathedrals, and from the gathering places of Beat-era San Francisco to the sinuous contours of plants. Drawing almost exclusively in pen or brush and ink, he captured his subjects in a web of line that was sometimes simple and economical, but more often complex and kaleidoscopic. – “Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton” is made possible by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Agnes Gund, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin M. Rosen, the Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Research and Publications, and the Rita Markus Fund for Exhibitions, with support from The Lunder Foundation – Peter and Paula Lunder Family. – Video by SandenWolff #MorganLibrary #RickBarton

The Morgan can now be seen in a new light! An important part of our project to restore the 1906 McKim, Mead, & White-designed library and improve the site surrounding it, is a lighting design by New York City-based lighting designer Linnaea Tillett. The new lighting enhances and accentuates the neo-classical architecture and the new garden. . As a New York City native who was born and raised in Manhattan, Linnaea Tillett grew up visiting the Morgan. From the start of the project, Tillett viewed the lighting design as an opportunity to bring magic to the Morgan. Through a sensitive approach, she created a scheme that considers the competing elements: the densely populated surrounding neighborhood; the harsh New York City LED street lights; the architecture of the J. Pierpont Morgan Library building; and the new garden on the campus of the Morgan. Her work highlights the dimensionality of the library’s entrance, sculptures, architecture, and the garden to bring a warm, welcoming view from the street for all to enjoy. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #MorganLibrary #NYC #architecture #LinnaeaTillett

Tickets for our 2022-2023 music concerts go on sale today! Learn more and book your tickets visit themorgan.org/programs.

Why do the doors of our library building look so good? ✨ . The ornate brass and wooden doors to our J. Pierpont Morgan Library received a deep cleaning and much needed repairs as part of our restoration project. At the beginning of the project, they were removed from the building and sent to the Art Conservation Group in Long Island City to remove the dirt that has accumulated on the surface of the doors for over a century. After arriving in Long Island City, the doors were kept in oxygen deprivation chambers for six weeks to kill any organisms on the doors before the conservation treatments began. Conservators carefully cleaned and waxed the bronze components and completed wood restoration on the doors. Once completed, they gave the doors a layer of wax to help protect the doors into the future. The work has given the doors a new life, bringing back the intricate brass details and wooden background to the original state. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #MorganLibrary #nyc #architecture

When landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan was enlisted to create a garden next to our library building he designed a European garden to connect to the original vision of J. Pierpont Moran. His design balances order and nature alongside European elements, including three antiquities and a series of hand-laid patterned bluestone walkways. . Sicilian artisan Orazio Porto comes from a family of artisans known for their work using the 2,800 year old Roman method of laying pebble pavements for generations. Their precise work entails the intricate task of selecting and hand-laying pebbles to create beautiful, one-of-a-kind pathways. The walkways are first laid with a soft structure of sand, followed by a layer of hydraulic lime to level the pebbles, then topped by sand from Etna, Sicily. In the design for the new garden, landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan enlisted Porto to create bluestone walkways inspired by the patterned stone floors in the interior of the library building. Using hand-picked pebbles selected from the Mediterranean Sea, Porto has brought his craftsmanship to the Morgan, creating remarkable new Greco-Roman cobblestone pathways that guides our visitors throughout the garden. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. Video by SandenWolff. #morganlibrary #nyc #architecture #toddlongstaffegowan

The new garden is open to visitors every Friday and Saturday from noon to closing until October 9th! As part of the second phase of our restoration project, this new outdoor space adds a new layer to our campus. It enabled visitors to experience the jewel of our campus—J. Pierpont Morgan’s library—from a different view. . Acclaimed British landscape designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan was selected to create the garden—the designer’s first project in the United States. Over the past several years, the designer has been developing plans that invite the public into the site for the first time in the institution's history while enhancing the building. While there are no known plans for a garden in front of the historic library, Longstaffe-Gowan developed a project that emerges from the history of our campus, fusing a European sensibility with inspiration from the building's architecture. In his design, patterned accessible walkways of hand-laid bluestone recall the Renaissance floor patterns inside the library building and knit together three primary planting areas that bring the garden to life. Three antiquities—a large Roman sarcophagus, a Roman funerary stele, and a pair of Renaissance corbels—are given a new life as primary features of the garden. Throughout the garden, the plantings are low and natural to frame views of the library building. . The garden is part of a comprehensive renovation plan of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library building. Completed in 1906, the McKim, Mead & White designed building is one of the finest examples of Neoclassical architecture in the United States. This is the first comprehensive exterior restoration in the landmark building’s 115-year history and will help to preserve the building for generations to come. The new garden is the final phase of a multi-year project to restore the building’s exterior, including a roof replacement, waterproofing of the building and fence, and conservation treatment to the roof, façade, log

Take a closer look at this 900 year old English manuscript with Dei Jackson, Assistant Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, as she tells the story of St. Edmund. When Pierpont Morgan acquired his first medieval manuscripts at the end of the nineteenth century, he laid the foundation for a collection whose quality would rank among the greatest in the world. Since Morgan's death in 1913, the collection has more than doubled. Spanning some ten centuries of Western illumination, it includes more than eleven hundred manuscripts as well as papyri. The Morgan's collection is made up primarily of Western manuscripts, with French being the largest single national group, followed by Italian, English, German, Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish. There are also examples of Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopian, Arabic, Persian, and Indian manuscripts. More than fifty Coptic manuscripts from Hamouli, Egypt, nearly all of which were found in their original bindings, form the oldest and most important group of Sahidic manuscripts from a single provenance, the Monastery of St. Michael at Sôpehes. Video by SandenWolff. #MorganLibrary #MedievalManuscripts

The restoration is more than meets the eye! A crucial step in our restoration process included an extensive waterproofing process to protect the landmarked site of the J. Pierpoint Morgan library. Executive architects Beyer Blinder Belle led the effort by identifying areas of risk and exposure, then developing a strategy to protect the Morgan. . Using physical barriers and diversion tactics, the team developed a strategy of six phases to waterproof the site. Beginning below grade, the team installed a comprehensive waterproofing system to protect the foundation, then addressed other areas of the building including the roof and the walls. The final phase of the project addressed a defining feature of the Morgan—the foundation to the original bronze fence lining the perimeter of the site. While much of the work is not visible to the public, it helps to keep the jewels of the Morgan—both the building and the collections inside—protected from the elements for years to come. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. Video by SandenWolff. #MorganLibrary #NYC #Architecture

Our curators Christine Nelson and Jennifer Tonkovich give a look inside the creation of our exhibition, “J. Pierpont Morgan's Library: Building the Bookman's Paradise.” With rarely seen architectural drawings, period photographs, and significant rare books and manuscripts from Morgan’s collection, “Building the Bookman’s Paradise” traces the design, construction, and early life of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library. It honors the designers, tradesmen, artists, and builders who created the Library more than a century ago and celebrates the completion of the exterior restoration and enhancement of this landmark building, which now anchors the campus of the Morgan Library & Museum. “J. Pierpont Morgan's Library: Building the Bookman's Paradise” is open to the public now through September 18, 2022. – “J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library: Building the Bookman’s Paradise” is made possible by generous support from the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, the Parker Gilbert Fund, the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, the Achelis & Bodman Foundation, Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, Mr. G. Scott Clemons and Ms. Karyn Joaquino, and the Franklin Jasper Walls Lecture Fund. – Video by SandenWolff #MorganLibrary #BookmansParadise

Developed by landscape designer Todd Longstaffe-Gowan and lighting designer Linnaea Tillett Lighting Design Associates, the design of the landscape surrounding the J. Pierpont Morgan Library enhances the building and surrounding landscape of the southern section of the Morgan’s campus as it adds new functional space for visitors to enjoy. This component of our renovation project allows for the building to be seen in a new light! Todd Longstraffe-Gowan created a landscape design that transforms the once standard lawn into a new, inviting space for programs, events, and circulation. New accessible paths made from patterned bluestone nod to the interior floor patterns and facilitate access between the interior of the building and the garden. Antiquities from the museum’s holdings including a large Roman sarcophagus, a Roman funerary stele, and a pair of Renaissance corbels are integrated into the garden providing interest to the garden as they expand access to the museum’s collection. The design contributes to the beauty of the public streetscape as it complements the architecture with unobstructed views of our buildings on 36th street. Linnea Tillett Lighting Design Associates designed a lighting scheme in conjunction with the landscape design to distinguish features of the architecture and garden. The enchanting, moonlit nocturnal environment they developed sits in contrast to and mediates the ambient street lighting with no trespass to neighboring buildings. The warm, welcoming glow emphasizes the domestic quality of the architecture as harken to a past history—J. Pierpoint Morgan’s residence was the first residence in the city with electric lights. The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar d

Joel Smith, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography, discusses Ray Johnson's final project in which he used 137 disposable cameras to make photographs that pull the world of everyday “real life” into his art. Johnson's earlier photo-based collages and mail art are now on view in "PLEASE SEND TO REAL LIFE: Ray Johnson Photographs," an exploration of the four decades of the artist’s career. Video by SandenWolff #MorganLibrary #RayJohnson #Photography

It’s not just a façade! The façade of our J. Pierpont Morgan Library building uses a complex ancient Greek building technique that enables the stone to have no visible mortar. The architects, McKim, Mead & White, adapted this technique to account for the variable climate in New York city. In this video, Jennifer Schork, Senior Conservator of Integrated Conservation Resources, describes this complex system with a diagram of the building blocks. With only 1/64” of space between the front of the custom blocks of Tennessee marble, from afar, our façade appears to be a sheer wall of stone. Behind the façade, the blocks of stone have a small trough for mortar to secure the building together. The precise construction techniques and design have held the building in remarkable condition throughout the years. The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #MorganLibrary #NYC #Architecture

Author and curator Colm Tóibín and our Robert H. Taylor Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts Philip Palmer discuss the legacy of "Ulysses" and Joyce's impact on modern literature. Now on view, “One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses'” explores Joyce’s trajectory from lyric poet to modernist genius. It considers key figures in his career; artists and writers who responded to the novel; and the family who shaped him as a man and writer. At the exhibition’s heart is Joyce’s imagination as he created his masterpiece, explored in manuscripts, plans, and proofs, with major contributions from the James Joyce Collection, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. This presentation celebrates a significant gift to the Morgan by Sean and Mary Kelly, who over several decades accumulated one of the foremost Joyce collections in private hands. “One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses'” is made possible by The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, the Government of Ireland, the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, and the Drue Heinz Exhibitions and Programs Fund. Additional support is provided by the Themis Anastasia Brown Fund and the Dedalus Foundation. #JamesJoyceUlysses #MorganLibrary

Harry Callahan was one of the most influential photographic teachers of the last century. Listen to Joel Smith, the Richard L. Menschel Curator and Department Head of Photography, as he deconstructs a “problem picture” created by Callahan titled “Collage Chicago”, which is in the Morgan’s collection. __________ #MorganLibrary #Photography #HarryCallahan

Rick Barton’s art is now exhibited publicly for the first time in “Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton.” Very little is known about Barton, who, between 1958 and 1962, created hundreds of drawings of striking originality. His subjects range from the intimacy of his room to the architecture of Mexican cathedrals, and from the gathering places of Beat-era San Francisco to the sinuous contours of plants. Drawing almost exclusively in pen or brush and ink, he captured his subjects in a web of line that was sometimes simple and economical, but more often complex and kaleidoscopic. Curator Rachel Federman shares more on Barton’s style. Video by SandenWolff #RickBarton #MorganLibrary

We have a new roof over our heads! For the first time in the McKim, Mead, & White building’s 112-year history, our roof has undergone a complete replacement with a team of experts. In this video, Slawomir Wiszowaty, discusses the work the roofers did to complete this project. As the project foreman for the exterior restoration contractors, Nicholson & Galloway, Inc., Wiszowaty and his team diligently removed and replaced the decades-old roof. The work required time and precision from the skilled team of roofers to complete the project. While not seen by visitors, our new sparkling white roof is a primary component in preserving our collections and our architecture. Our visitors are often looking up inside our library building—at our ornate ceilings and impressive collection of books—and this new roof is essential to protecting our building. The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #MorganLibrary #NYC #Architecture

Take a closer look at three “action portraits” from the Morgan’s 20th Century photography collection with Joel Smith, the Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography. Listen as Joel shares his insights on these dynamic images! The camera has played many overlapping roles in the history of artful communication on the page. A defining visual practice of the modern age, photography has exerted an ever-evolving influence as a medium of fine, commercial, and folk art; as a transformative mode of mass-market technology; and as an unparalleled means of visual documentation. The Morgan collects visually arresting photographs from fields of endeavor that the medium has helped to invent or to reinvent, including (to name but a few) advertising, art, book design, cartography, cinema, criminology, exploration, family history, glamour, journalism, medicine, politics, sports, and zoology. In these areas of activity and in others, the photograph has redefined what is beautiful, credible, memorable, shareable, and even perceptible. #Photography #MorganLibrary

Now on view: "J. Pierpont Morgan's Library: Building the Bookman's Paradise" In 1902, the American financier and collector J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) commissioned architect Charles Follen McKim (1847–1909) of the firm McKim, Mead & White to design a freestanding library next to his home on East 36th Street in New York. With rarely seen architectural drawings, period photographs, and significant rare books and manuscripts from Morgan’s collection, this exhibition traces the design, construction, and early life of J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library. It honors the designers, tradesmen, artists, and builders who created the Library more than a century ago and celebrates the completion of the exterior restoration and enhancement of this landmark building, which now anchors the campus of the Morgan Library & Museum. In 1908, an unnamed correspondent from the London Times visited the completed Library and published the first public account of its lavish interiors and the splendid rare volumes held within. “The Bookman’s Paradise exists,” the writer announced, “and I have seen it.... I have entered the most carefully, jealously guarded treasure-house in the world, and nothing in it has been hidden from me.” Today, the “bookman’s paradise” belongs to all of us. -- "J. Pierpont Morgan’s Library: Building the Bookman’s Paradise" is made possible by generous support from the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, the Parker Gilbert Fund, the Arthur F. and Alice E. Adams Charitable Foundation, the Achelis & Bodman Foundation, Mrs. Oscar de la Renta, and Mr. G. Scott Clemons and Ms. Karyn Joaquino, with assistance from Jessie Schilling and the Franklin Jasper Walls Lecture Fund. Video by SandenWolff #BookmansParadise #MorganLibrary

The restoration project of our McKim, Mead & White building was led with the guidance and careful eye of the architectural conservators from Integrated Conservation Resources, Inc. (ICR). Glenn Boornazian, the President and Principal Conservator of ICR discusses their process of assessing the building with an overview of the work they did to restore the building in this video. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Throughout the project, the ICR team determined what was necessary in order to do a comprehensive and cohesive restoration. While the building is in remarkable condition for its age, some degradation of a 112-year old structure is expected. ICR developed a strategy to balance the work: retaining some cracks in order to show history while doing repairs that pose physical or aesthetic issues. Throughout the project, they designed conservation methods that were physically and aesthetically compatible with the original materials to further the lifespan of the building for years to come. ⠀⠀ The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #MorganLibrary #Architecture

Now on view: One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” Set on one day, 16 June 1904, James Joyce’s "Ulysses" follows the young poet Stephen Dedalus and the unlikely hero Leopold Bloom as they journey through Dublin. The groundbreaking novel links the epic to the ordinary, connecting characters and motifs from Homer’s ancient Greek poem the Odyssey with life in the Irish city that created Joyce. Written in self-imposed exile between 1914 and 1921, "Ulysses" expanded the limits of language and genre—and not without controversy. Censored and banned in America and England for obscenity, its publication in Paris a century ago was the catalyst for new legal standards of artistic freedom. “One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses'” explores Joyce’s trajectory from lyric poet to modernist genius. It considers key figures in his career; artists and writers who responded to the novel; and the family who shaped him as a man and writer. At the exhibition’s heart is Joyce’s imagination as he created his masterpiece, explored in manuscripts, plans, and proofs, with major contributions from the James Joyce Collection, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. This presentation celebrates a significant gift to the Morgan by Sean and Mary Kelly, who over several decades accumulated one of the foremost Joyce collections in private hands. “One Hundred Years of James Joyce’s 'Ulysses'” is made possible by The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, the Government of Ireland, the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, and the Drue Heinz Exhibitions and Programs Fund. Additional support is provided by the Themis Anastasia Brown Fund and the Dedalus Foundation. Video by SandenWolff #MorganLibrary #JamesJoyceUlysses

Our building is restored! . We are pleased to announce the completion of the multi-year exterior restoration and enhancement of our 1906 McKim, Mead & White-designed library building. Since embarking on this project in 2016, we have had an incredible team of experts working diligently to restore our building and give a new life to the surrounding site. . The restoration project included: a comprehensive restoration of the façade with extensive repairs to the loggia; a roof replacement; foundation waterproofing,; cleaning and restoration of the bronze and wooden front doors; conservation of of the bronze fence lining the perimeter of the site; and the cleaning and repair to the sculptures that flank the loggia entrance and the lionesses that guard our library building. As part of the project, we added a new garden to the site surrounding the library and a new lighting design to show off our newly restored building! And to ensure this National Historic Landmark is protected for decades to come, we created ongoing maintenance plans. . We are grateful to the highly-skilled team that made this project possible. To learn more about the project and its talented team, please visit the link in our bio. . The exterior restoration of J. Pierpont Morgan's Library and the Morgan Garden was made possible by lead support from the Charina Endowment Fund, Inc.; The City of New York through the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with support from the Mayor’s Office and New York City Council; Mrs. Oscar de la Renta; the Sherman Fairchild Foundation, Inc.; Morgan Stanley; Katharine J. Rayner; and the Thompson Family Foundation. #morganlibrary #nyc #architecture

Aedin Moloney reads from James Joyce's Ulysses
Aedin Moloney reads from James Joyce's Ulysses

In honor of #Bloomsday100, we are pleased to share a reading from Ulysses, James Joyce's iconic novel, by actress Aedín Moloney. Moloney is now starring in "YES! Reflections of Molly Bloom" at the Irish Repertory Theatre through July 17. http://irishrep.org/yes "One Hundred Years of James Joyce's Ulysses" is now on view at the Morgan! #MorganLibrary #JamesJoyceUlysses #Ulysses100 Aedin Moloney

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About the Morgan

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan. Today it is a museum, independent research library, music venue, architectural landmark, and historic site located in the heart of New York City.

A century after its founding, the Morgan remains committed to offering visitors close encounters with great works of human accomplishment in a setting treasured for its intimate scale. Its collection of manuscripts, rare books, music, drawings, and works of art comprise a unique and dynamic record of civilization, as well as an incomparable repository of ideas and of the creative process from 4000 BC to the present.

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Happy Birthday to ! We are honoring one of her lesser-known projects, “Fire!!: Devoted to Younger Negro Artists,” an African-American literary magazine published in New York City in 1926 during the Harlem Renaissance.

The publication was started by Hurston along with her friends and colleagues including Wallace Thurman, Aaron Douglas, John P. Davis, Richard Bruce Nugent, Gwendolyn Bennett, Lewis Grandison Alexander, Countee Cullen, and Langston Hughes. After it published one issue, its quarters burned down, and the magazine ended.

Our Astor Curator of Printed Books, Jesse Erickson, has said of this unique object, “This magazine...has since been recognized as a key example of the bold, pioneering energy of the Harlem Renaissance. Featuring literary and artistic contributions from a select group of the community's more daring creators, it contains interesting examples of how the moderness of its stories and illustrations was in part inspired by an embrace of literary decadence and an earlier generation of aesthetes."

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Fire!! a quarterly devoted to the younger Negro artists / premier edition edited by Wallace Thurman in association with Langston Hughes [and others]. New York : [publisher not identified], 1926. The Carter Burden Collection of American Literature.

Novelist Seanan Forbes recently had the chance to take a close look at these tarot cards (Death, The Hanged Man, and The Juggler) in the Reading Room for their forthcoming q***r young-adult prequel to Romeo and Juliet. In Forbes’ novel – which explores adolescence, gender and sexuality, book-making and collecting, and espionage – tarot cards serve as a method of communication among spies.

The tarot deck was created in 15th-century Italy as a card game to be enjoyed by the aristocracy – it was not until centuries later that it became associated with divination and the occult. The tarot cards at the Morgan were probably created by Bonifacio Bembo for the Visconti-Sforza family, and constitute one of the most complete surviving decks from the 15th century.

Learn more about these cards and check out our digital facsimile at the link in our bio!
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Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards (Milan, Italy, ca. 1450-1480); ​​MS M.630.12 (Death), M.630.11 (The Hanged Man), M.630.1 (The Juggler).

Last chance to dive into the professional correspondence of our first director, Belle da Costa Greene! “Belle da Costa Greene and the Women of the Morgan” closes this Sunday, January 8th.

Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950) began working as J. Pierpont Morgan’s librarian in 1905. After Morgan’s death in 1913, Greene maintained a similar role as the institution’s first director, opening the private treasure-house to the public in 1924. Her professional correspondence, catalogued only recently, offers new insight into how Greene maneuvered in a world of books and manuscripts dominated by men. It also reveals the stories of other women who worked with Greene at the Morgan Library, including Meta Harrsen, Marguerite Duprez Lahey, Dorothy Miner, Violet Napier (née Burnie), and Ada Thurston.

The letters and objects on display document the experiences of these women, who were among the small but growing number of female rare-book librarians worldwide. Greene and the women she hired were respected and widely regarded as experts in their field. Above all, these women of the Morgan were ambitious, committed to the value of their work, and well attuned to their boss’s high expectations. As the exhibition shows, however, Greene was not only a director but also a mentor and friend. Her story and legacy will be the subject of a major exhibition in 2024 to mark the Morgan’s centenary as a public institution.

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Clarence H. White (1871–1925)
Belle da Costa Greene, 1911
Biblioteca Berenson, I Tatti, The Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies

Most likely representing a high priestess, this statuette calls forth a line from “The Exaltation of Inanna” by Enheduanna: “Me, who once sat triumphant.” The image also resonates with that of Enheduanna on her votive disk. The woman’s transfixed gaze expresses deep reflection and her hands are firmly clasped in devotion. In her lap is a small tablet. Three incisions on its surface represent the columnar division of clay tablets, an overt reference to cuneiform writing. The tablet and divisions bear witness to the dedicator’s well-educated status and engagement with writing, perhaps as an author. As a votive, the statue’s offering is a written text.

"She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C." is now on view through February 5, 2023.

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Seated female figure with tablet on lap Mesopotamia, Neo-Sumerian Ur III period (ca. 2112–2004 BC). © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Vorderasiatisches Museum. Photo by Olaf M. Teßmer.

In 2014, Bryan proposed an idea to his editor: a book of collages illustrating poems by Langston Hughes about the sea. Bryan noted that, living by the sea as he had for many years, he often referred to Hughes’s poems on the subject. He later stated that he chose poems he “felt a child would have no trouble immersing him- or herself in.” Bryan made collages for each of the fifteen poems in Sail Away.

Langston Hughes wrote “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” at the age of eighteen and it was one of his earliest published works, appearing in The Crisis in June 1921. It has become a foundational poem—memorized, recited, studied, sung, illustrated, and read over and over again. Translated into many languages, it is part of the lives of people worldwide.

You can see these puppets and more in our current exhibition "Ashley Bryan & Langston Hughes: Sail Away" on view through January 22.

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Ashley Bryan, The Negro Speaks of Rivers (from Sail Away) 2015, recto, 2021.25:17. The Morgan Library & Museum, Gift of the Ashley Bryan Center, 2021.25:17r. Photography by Janny Chiu, 2022. © 2015 The Ashley Bryan Center. Used with Permission. All Rights Reserved.

Calling all storybook lovers! ? Every first Saturday of the month, we invite families to leap off the page with our newest family program geared towards younger readers! Family First Saturdays include a family tour of the exhibitions “Ashley Bryan & Langston Hughes: Sail Away” and “The Little Prince: Taking Flight” followed by a live picture book storytime.

This event is recommended for families and children ages 4–8 and is free with museum admission. The Morgan is free to children 12 and under.

Join our next Family First Saturday on Saturday, January 7 at 11 AM.
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Illustration by Tanu Vasu

Happy New Year from the Morgan! 2022 brought a stellar lineup of exhibitions stretching across the globe and thousands of years back in time. We are so grateful for the completion of our stunning restoration and, of course, our visitors!

We hope to see even more of you in 2023!

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Exterior restoration photography by Brett Beyer, 2022
Installation view of "Holbein: Capturing Character" Photography by Janny Chiu, 2022.
Installation view of "One Hundred Years of James Joyce's Ulysses" Photography by Janny Chiu, 2022.
Installation view of "She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400–2000 B.C." Photography by Janny Chiu, 2022.

This drawing relates to two paintings of the same title, inspired by the sight of young women riding their bicycles in Olmo, a hamlet outside of Florence. Although Georg Baselitz does not usually make sketches for his paintings, in this instance he recalled, “When I first made the corresponding painting, I didn’t know what a bicycle and a girl with peddling legs looked like. I then made a kind of sketch with what was lying around in the studio—large pieces of paper and oil paint.” This explains the paint drops and shoe imprints on the sheet—a picturesque evocation of the studio.

“Georg Baselitz: Six Decades of Drawings” is now on view at the Morgan.
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The Girls from Olmo, (Die Mädchen von Olmo), 1981
The ALBERTINA Museum, Vienna – Gift of the Georg and Elke Baselitz Family. © 2022 Georg Baselitz. Photography by Jochen Littkemenn.

Before departing, the prince tells the pilot, “In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing.” The pilot, who fixes his plane and gets home, remembers these words and shares, “At night I love to listen to the stars.”

This drawing, once crumpled up and nearly discarded, shows the little prince flying high above the Earth. It offers another view of the desert, “the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world,” which the pilot renders in the book’s final illustration: “It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared.”

“The Little Prince: Taking Flight” is on view through February 5, 2023.
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Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944)
The little prince flying over a planet with mountains and a river, New York, 1942. The Morgan Library & Museum, MA 2592.34. Photography by Graham S. Haber.

On the right of this seal impression, we can see a ritual taking place in front of a temple entrance. Two female worshippers approach a deity wearing a horned crown, whose seat is supported by a pair of bison. In front of the deity is a rearing ram carrying a small offering table. The worshipper closest to the offering table holds a spouted vessel for libation. The second worshipper, who is taller and slightly elevated, watches from behind; her long, loose hair is held back by a circlet reminiscent of Enheduanna’s headdress. Although the identity of the figures is unknown, this well-preserved seal bears testament to prominent women’s role in the ritual presentation of temple offerings.

“She Who Wrote: Enheduanna and Women of Mesopotamia, ca. 3400-2000 B.C.” is now on view at the Morgan.
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Cylinder seal (and modern impression) with two female figures presenting offerings Mesopotamia, Sumerian, possibly Umma (modern Tell Jokha) Early Dynastic IIIa period, ca. 2500 BC. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Vorderasiatisches Museum. Photography by Olaf M. Teßmer.

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