Displaying items by tag: Morgan Library and Museum

Between 1973 and 1996 Carter Burden, a former trustee of the Morgan Library & Museum and onetime New York City councilman, assembled the greatest collection of modern American literature in private hands. In doing so, Burden revolutionized the market in modern first editions by paying record prices for copies in the best possible condition and with notable attributes such as authors’ annotations and presentation inscriptions. The depth and breadth of his holdings were truly extraordinary—spanning the twentieth century and including focused concentrations on such movements as the Lost Generation, the Beats, and the Harlem Renaissance.

Beginning in 1997, after Burden’s sudden death the previous year, his family has made a gift to the Morgan of twelve thousand volumes from his collection. Gatsby to Garp: Modern Masterpieces from the Carter Burden Collection, on view from May 20 through September 7, brings together nearly one hundred outstanding works from the collection, including first editions, manuscripts, letters, and revised galley proofs.

New York’s Morgan Library & Museum announced that it will begin digitizing its renowned collection of master drawings next month. The goal is to create a digital library of over 10,000 images, representing drawings spanning the 14^th to 21^st centuries. The images will be free of charge through the Morgan’s website. The project is slated to reach completion within one year.

The images will be available for download for use in classroom presentations, dissertations and educational websites devoted to the fine arts. Each image will be linked to a corresponding catalogue record detailing the scholarly information related to each drawing. 2,000 of the drawings will include images of versos, which will show inscriptions by the artist.

William M. Griswold, director of the Morgan Library & Museum, said, “This project will provide access to the full range of the collection and is critical to our institutional goal of promoting drawings scholarship and reaching out to an ever larger audience.”

The Morgan Library & Museum in New York is currently presenting a selection of exceptional documents from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, one of the country’s leading collections of Americana. Reflections on a Nation features documents from the Revolutionary, early national, antebellum, and Civil War periods that represent an array of transformative moments that took place throughout the history of the United States.

Highlights from the exhibition include the only surviving copy of a 1776 edition of the Declaration of Independence printed in the South, a first edition of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a letter written by George Washington to secretary of war Henry Knox, and a letter written by Frederick Douglass to Mary Todd Lincoln. In it, Douglass thanked the president’s widow for giving him her husband’s walking stick, which he said was an indication of Lincoln’s “humane interest [in the] welfare of my whole race.”

Reflections on a Nation will be on view at the Morgan Library & Museum through January 12, 2014.

After acquiring a considerable number of important drawings, the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City has mounted an exhibition to showcase their recently added works. Spanning from the Renaissance through the 19^th century, the drawings were acquired through gifts, purchases, and bequests. Over 100 of these works will be featured in Old Masters, Newly Acquired.

The Morgan has greatly improved its Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Symbolist holdings by acquiring a number of works by such artists as Édouard Manet (1832-1883), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940), and Odilon Redon (1840-1916). The museum also acquired over forty Danish drawings including sheets by several Golden Age masters including C.W. Eckersberg (1783-1853) and Johan Lundbye (181-1848). The Morgan added to their British watercolor collection with works by John Martin (1789-1854) and Samuel Palmer (1805-1881). William M. Griswold, director of the museum, said, “The Morgan’s collection of drawings is among the finest in the world, and the institution has been very fortunate to have long-standing relationships with some of America’s most important collectors. This exhibition celebrates their connoisseurship and their commitment to the Morgan.”

Old Masters, New Acquired will be on view at the Morgan Library & Museum through August 11, 2013.

Taking over two galleries at New York City’s Morgan Library & Museum, Dürer to de Kooning: 100 Master Drawings from Munich, spans the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. The show includes rarely seem works by old masters such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Raphael, and Rubens as well as nineteenth century sheets by van Gogh and contemporary works by Pablo Picasso, David Hockney, and Georg Baselitz. The drawings, which are on loan from the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich, have never before been on view in the United States.

Comprised of a complex of buildings on Madison Avenue, the Morgan began as the private library of the financier Pierpont Morgan. In 1924, eleven years after Pierpont’s death his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr., turned the library into a public institution.

100 Masters will be on view through January 6, 2013.

Along with being one of the foremost financiers in history, Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) was an avid art collector and generous cultural benefactor. In the early-nineteenth century Morgan began amassing a collection of important manuscripts, early printed books, and Old Master works on paper. A New York City resident at the time, Morgan decided to have a private library built to house his notable acquisitions. With Charles McKim (1847–1909) of the architectural firm McKim, Mead & White at the helm, a grand, three-room Italian-Renaissance-style palazzo masterpiece was constructed between 1902 and 1906.