The Morgan Library & Museum is pleased to announce its schedule of exhibitions for 2025. These include a focused exhibition on a fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript that weaves together tales of places both near and far, told from the perspective of a medieval armchair traveler in northern France; a selection of new acquisitions made in honor of the Morgan’s centennial; a retrospective of photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the most important and innovative photographers of the 19th century; a celebration of Jane Austen on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of her birth; the first comprehensive museum presentation of contemporary artist Lisa Yuskavage’s drawings; an exhibition that traces the impact of the Bible’s Psalms on men and women in medieval Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth century; and the first exhibition in a century to explore Auguste Renoir’s works on paper in depth
The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World January 24 through May 25, 2025 From the tales of famous travelers like Marco Polo and Alexander the Great to the ancient encyclopedias of Pliny and Isidore, medieval conceptions of the world were often based more on authoritative tradition than direct observation. This exhibition presents one of the most fascinating examples of a medieval guide to the globe, known as the Book of the Marvels of the World. Written in France by an unknown author, this fifteenth-century illustrated text vividly depicts the remarkable inhabitants, customs, and natural phenomena of various regions, both near and far. Reuniting two of the four surviving copies, The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World brings to life medieval conceptions—and misconceptions—of a global world. Additional objects in the exhibition demonstrate how foreign cultures were imagined in the Middle Ages, and what the assumptions of medieval Europeans tell us about their own implicit biases and beliefs. Highlights include rare illustrated manuscripts of Marco Polo and John Mandeville; a richly ornamented Ottoman Book of Wonders, made for a sultan’s daughter; and a spectacular medieval map of the Holy Land, based on pilgrimage accounts. Organized by Joshua O’Driscoll, Associate Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.
A Celebration: Acquisitions in Honor of the Morgan's Centennial May 9 through August 17, 2025 In the century since its founding as a public institution, the Morgan’s collections have grown dramatically, deepening the core assembled by J. Pierpont Morgan and his librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, who became the first Director of the institution. This growth is made possible through the support of members and donors who expand and enrich the historical, artistic, and literary contexts of the Morgan’s holdings, and this exhibition commemorates a notable selection of purchases, gifts, and promised gifts made in honor of the Morgan’s Centennial. Ranging from the Middle Ages to the present, the exhibition will include two manuscripts related to the publication of Leonardo da Vinci’s Treatise on Painting; Renaissance and modern bookbindings of exceptional craftsmanship; an extraordinary group of literary manuscripts by François-René de Chateaubriand, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, and others; groups of photographs by Emmet Gowin and Frederick Sommer; and drawings by Parmigianino, Annibale Carracci, Hugh Douglas Hamilton, Cy Twombly, Helen Frankenthaler, Bridget Riley, Giuseppe Penone, and William Kentridge. Organized by John McQuillen, Associate Curator of Printed Books & Bindings.
Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron May 30 through September 14, 2025 “I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.” —Julia Margaret Cameron Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron explores the path-breaking career of photography’s first widely recognized artist. Cameron (1815 - 1879) was born in Calcutta to a French mother and an English father; in 1848, with her husband and children, she moved to England, where her sisters introduced her to the elite cultural circles in which they traveled. Residing on the Isle of Wight, where she was close neighbors with the poet Alfred Tennyson, Cameron acquired her first camera at age 48. In only eleven years she would create thousands of exposures and leave an enduring image of the Victorian era as an age of intellectual and spiritual ambition. Her own prodigious drive helped Cameron become a probing portraitist of leading figures such as Tennyson, Thomas Carlyle, G.F. Watts, and Charles Darwin, while her absorption with fine art, notably Renaissance painting, led her to create staged tableaux in a mode that has been perpetually rediscovered by photographers down to the present. Most distinct of all was Cameron’s wholly personal handling of her medium. Heedless of a large camera’s technical limitations, alert to the happy effects of accident, and indifferent to critical scorn, she embraced a style of spontaneous intimacy that distanced her from the photographic establishment of her time and class. Motion blur, highly selective focus, and even fingerprints on the glass negatives (which required developing before their emulsions dried) are among the idiosyncrasies of her singular oeuvre. Cameron was quick to exploit publishing and promotional opportunities: at London’s South Kensington Museum (today the Victoria & Albert Museum) she secured not only an exhibition in 1865 but, a few years later, studio space, and she was the first photographic artist to be collected by the institution. Arresting Beauty features prints from its initial purchase and from subsequent additions to its holdings, which have grown to number nearly one thousand. The exhibition includes Cameron’s large if optically primitive lens (all that survives of her apparatus), pages from her memoir manuscript Annals of My Glass House, and portraits she made in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) after Cameron and her husband moved there in 1875. Organized by Joel Smith, Richard L. Menschel Curator of Photography.
A Lively Mind: Jane Austen at 250 June 6 through September 14, 2025 A Lively Mind immerses viewers in the inspiring story of Jane Austen’s authorship and her gradual rise to international fame. Iconic artifacts from Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, England join manuscripts, books, and artworks from the Morgan, as well as from a dozen institutional and private collections, to present compelling new perspectives on Austen’s literary achievement, her personal style, and her global legacy. Beginning as a teenager, Austen cultivated her imaginative powers and her ambition to publish. Encouraged by her family, especially her father and her sister Cassandra, she persevered through years of uncertainty. Her creativity found expression in a range of artistic pursuits, from music-making to a delight in fashion. The story of how Americans first encountered and responded to Austen’s novels, unbeknownst to her, emerges from four surviving copies of an unauthorized edition of Emma published during her lifetime. Following Austen’s death, family members preserved their memories of her, while carefully guarding what was publicly revealed. Austen’s audience continued to grow as those who loved her novels helped new generations of readers to appreciate them. In addition to celebrating Austen, A Lively Mind commemorates the landmark bequest of Austen manuscripts to the Morgan in 1975 by the knowledgeable collector Alberta H. Burke of Baltimore. Organized by Dale Stinchcomb, Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts, and Juliette Wells, Professor of Literary Studies at Goucher College.
Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings June 27, 2025 through January 4, 2026 One of the most original and influential artists of the past three decades, Lisa Yuskavage (American b. 1962) creates works that affirm the integrity of her media (painting, drawing and printmaking) while challenging conventional art historical precedents. At once confrontational and meditative, her works blur the boundaries between high and low art, exploring traditional genres—the nude, portraiture, landscape and still life—with a contemporary eye to issues of female transgression and empowerment rooted in popular culture. Lisa Yuskavage: Drawings is the first comprehensive museum presentation of the artist’s drawings. Incorporating drawings from the early nineties to the present and including sketches and finished studies, the exhibition will feature a wide range of her explorations with materials including work in graphite, pen, Conte, pastel, charcoal, distemper, monotype, gouache, watercolor, acrylic and ink on paper. It will chart Yuskavage’s career-long inquiry into how process and material experimentation create entirely new ways to find images. From her earliest drawings of imagined figures and still lives, through a period of investigation into what constitutes a model, to her recent studio and landscape scenes synthesizing the real and the imagined into a new kind of fictional reality, Yuskavage’s drawings give insight into the way we see and comprehend the world. Within the jewel-like space of the Thaw Gallery, the exhibition provides an immersive experience, allowing the viewer to enter the artist’s mind. Organized by Claire Gilman,
Sing a New Song: The Psalms in Medieval Art and Life September 12, 2025 through January 4, 2026 Traditionally ascribed to King David, the Hebrew Book of Psalms is a collection of sacred poems that constitute the longest and most popular book of the Bible. These poems include expressions of lament and loss, petitions and confessions, as well as exclamations of joy and thanksgiving— universal themes that speak to what it means to be human. Sing a New Song traces the impact of the Psalms on men and women in medieval Europe from the sixth to the sixteenth century. It encompasses daily practices and performance, as well as the creation of Psalters (Books of Psalms), among the most richly ornamented manuscripts ever made. Stressing the integration of the Psalms in medieval life, topics range from children saying their prayers to people preparing to die.
The beginning of the exhibition is devoted to the Psalms’ origins, with special emphasis on David as composer. The following two sections show how Psalms permeated the intellectual culture of medieval Europe through translations into Latin and the vernacular. Children used Psalters to learn to read, patrons commissioned versions in their native languages, and theologians, glossing the Psalms, authored the most influential interpretive writings of the Middle Ages. The next section is dedicated to the medieval Psalter. More than any other text, Psalms informed the language of the liturgy, and the Psalter served effectively as the prayer book of the Church. Priests, monks, and nuns were required to pray all 150 Psalms weekly. Lay people across Europe, imitating these practices, fueled a demand for Psalters —often gloriously illuminated. Another section examines performance of the Psalms within the monastery, the church, and the private home. The final section examines the apotropaic function of Psalm texts, the use of Psalms as penitential atonement, and how Psalms comforted the dying. Organized by Roger S. Wieck, Melvin R. Seiden Curator and Department Head of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts.
Renoir’s Drawings October 17, 2025 through February 8, 2026 While the paintings of Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) have become icons of Impressionism, his drawings, watercolors, and pastels are far less widely known. In fact, drawing remained central to his artistic practice even as his interests and ambitions changed over the course of a long career. This exhibition explores the ways in which Renoir used paper to test ideas, plan compositions, and interpret both landscape and the human figure. Thematic sections will cover the full span of the artist’s career, ranging from academic studies he made as a student, to on-the-spot impressions of contemporary urban and rural life, to finished, formal portraits, to intimate sketches of friends and family completed late in life. In-depth case studies of favored themes and preparatory work for landmark canvases will further illuminate Renoir’s practice of drawing. Inspired by the major gift to the Morgan of a large-scale preparatory sketch for one of Renoir’s most significant paintings, The Great Bathers, this exhibition is the first in a century to explore the artist’s works on paper in depth. Organized by the Morgan Library Museum and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, Renoir’s Drawings brings together nearly one hundred drawings, pastels, watercolors, prints, and a small selection of paintings, enabling visitors to engage with Renoir’s creative process while offering insights into his artistic methods over five decades. Organized by Colin B. Bailey, Katharine J. Rayner Director, and Sarah Lees, Research Associate
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