Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

New at the Morgan: Acquisitions Since 2004

April 17 through October 18, 2009

Presenting over one hundred works that underscore the great scope of the Morgan's collecting interests, the exhibition includes old-master and modern drawings, literary and musical manuscripts, illuminated texts, and rare printed books and bindings. The selections are drawn from more than 1,200 works acquired since 2004 and include items by seminal figures from various genres.

The earliest work on view is a treatise in praise of poetry, dating to ca. 1300; the most recent, a drawing by Alexander Ross, dates to 2007. Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts are represented by, among other objects, the jewel-like Prayer Book of Queen Claude de France and the Book of Hours of the scribe Guillaume Lambert. Drawings include sheets by Rembrandt, Degas, Sargent, and Matisse. The show also features manuscripts and letters by Robert Frost, Vincent van Gogh, Henry James, Dylan Thomas, and Oscar Wilde. A large group of first-edition music scores that came to the Morgan as part of the James Fuld Collection are also on view, notably a sketch by Beethoven for his Seventh Symphony and a set of proofs of Wagner's opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

A highlight of the exhibition is the prominence of works by contemporary artists. In addition to the work by Alexander Ross, on view are drawings by Helen Frankenthaler, Red Grooms, Robert Morris, and Bruce Nauman, among others. Modern photography is also represented with works by Irving Penn and Diane Arbus.

This exhibition is made possible through the generosity of the Council of Fellows, with a lead gift from Karen and Mo Zukerman.

Top: John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) Portrait of Paul-César Helleu, ca. 1882–85 Watercolor in tones of brown, tan, cream, gray, rose, and violet over pencil.
9 1/4 x 14 3/8 in. (235 x 373 mm)
Gift of Rose Pitman Hughes and J. Lawrence Hughes in memory of Junius and Louise Morgan; 2005.5

Middle: Vincent van Gogh, letter to Paul Gauguin, Arles, 17 October 1888, Pen and brown/black ink on one vertically folded sheet of white wove, blue squared paper
10 3/8 x 8 1/4 inches (26.3 x 21.0 cm)
One sketch: The Bedroom
The Morgan Library & Museum; MA 6447
Gift of Eugene V. Thaw in honor of Charles E. Pierce, Jr., 2007

Bottom: Letter from Oscar Wilde to Bernulf Clegg, 1891. From a volume of manuscripts and letters of Oscar Wilde from the collection of the 11th Marquess of Queensberry. Gift of Lucia Moreira Salles. The Morgan Library & Museum; MA 7258.9

Selected Images

Book of Hours of Guillaume Lambert, Rome use, in Latin , 1484, Melvin R. Seiden Collection, 2007 , MS M.1162 (fol. 71v)
Red Grooms (b. 1937), Rudy Burckhardt at Machu Picchu , 1974, Pencil and colored ink on paper, Gift of Lysiane Luong Grooms and Red Grooms , 2008.3
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), Figures on a Busy Street , 1914, India ink, watercolor, gouache, and reed pen on wove paper, Bequest of Fred Ebb , 2005.14
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), Il dissoluto punito o sia: Il D. Giovanni , James Fuld Collection
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606–1669), Four Musicians with Wind Instruments , ca. 1638, Pen and brown ink, brown wash, some red and yellow-ochre chalk, Thaw Collection , 2004.42
Alexander Ross (American, born in Denver, Colorado, 1960), Untitled , 2007, Colored pencil on paper, Purchased as the gift of Whitney B. Armstrong and on the Young Associates Fund for Twentieth-Century Acquisitions , 2008.4
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Portrait of Paul-César Helleu , 1880s, Watercolor in tones of brown, tan, cream, gray, rose, and violet over pencil, Gift of Rose Pitman Hughes and J. Lawrence Hughes in memory of Junius and Louise Morgan , 2005.5
Egon Schiele (1890–1918), Embrace , 1914, Graphite pencil, Bequest of Fred Ebb , 2005.16
Giacomo Torelli (1608–1678), Scene e machine preparate alle Nozze di Teti, Balletto Reale , Purchased on the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2008 , PML 195035
"Saint James," woodcut in Catholic Church , Purchased as the gift of the B. H. Breslauer Foundation and on the B. H. Breslauer Foundation Fund, the Curt F. Bühler Fund, the Lathrop C. Harper Fund, and the Gordon N. Ray Fund, 2007 , PML 129974; ChL1447C
Richard Wagner (1813–1883), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Acts 2 and 3 , James Fuld Collection
Jean Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), Head of a Woman, Turned Three-Quarters to the Right , ca. 1717, Red and black chalks, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Kramarsky in memory of Lola and Siegfried Kramarsky on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Morgan Library and the 50th anniversary of the Association of Fellows , 2008.8
Trinity Adored by the Choirs of Angels (fols. 24v–25) , ca. 1517, Gift of Mrs. Alexandre P. Rosenberg in memory of her husband Alexandre Paul Rosenberg, 2008 , MS M.1166 (fols. 24v–25)