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Imperial Splendor offers a sweeping overview of manuscript production in the Holy Roman Empire, one of the most impressive chapters in the history of medieval art.

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.

Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950) began working as J. Pierpont Morgan’s librarian in 1905.

Composed chiefly of works in the Morgan’s collection, this exhibition explores how photographers have represented the bonds uniting people, whether in group portraits or in serial imagery.

In a letter written near the end of his life, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) explained to his sister that he had lived away from his native Venice because he could find no patrons there willing to support “the sublimity of my ideas.”

A leading French artist of the twentieth century, Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) eschewed traditional notions of beauty in art in favor of what he perceived as more authentic forms of expression, inspired by graffiti, children’s drawings, and the creations of psychiatric patients.

Rivers and Torrents highlights works from the collection of oil sketches given jointly to the Morgan and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2009 and 2016 by Eugene V. Thaw and his wife, Clare.

As part of a commitment to build a representative collection of works on paper by twentieth-century artists, the Morgan acquired two major works by the American painter and draftsman Stuart Davis (1892–1964): his earliest known diary, used by the artist between 1920 and 1922, and a sketchbook dated 1926. To celebrate these acquisitions, the Morgan presented Stuart Davis: Art and Theory, 1920–31.

Featuring more than sixty-five exquisitely illuminated manuscripts, Illuminating Faith offers glimpses into medieval culture, and explores the ways in which artists of the period depicted the celebration of the sacrament and its powerful hold on society.

This display celebrates Kasper’s bequest to the Morgan of eleven works on paper from his collection.