HOLLIS ClassicFrom the Collections of Harvard College Library, Events and Exhibitions 2009-2010
Edward Lear, Study of an Indigo Macaw, now known as Lear’s Macaw (Anodorhynchus leari), watercolor on paper (Houghton Library, MS Typ 55.9 (22))
April 2 - August 18, 2012
The Natural History of Edward Lear
Although he is best remembered today as a whimsical nonsense poet, adventurous traveler, and painter of luminous landscapes, Edward Lear is revered in scientific circles as one of the greatest natural history painters of all time. During his brief immersion in the world of science, he created a body of work that continues to inform, delight, and astonish us with its remarkable blend of scientific rigor and artistic finesse.
Thanks to the generosity of two discerning Harvard University benefactors, Philip Hofer and William B. Osgood Field, Houghton Library holds the largest and most complete collection of Edward Lear’s original paintings in the world. Among the thousands of items in this collection are some two hundred sketches, studies, and finished paintings devoted to natural history. This exhibition, commemorating the bicentennial of Lear’s birth, is the first devoted to this important aspect of his career.
Guest curator for the exhibition is Robert McCracken Peck, Senior Fellow at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (Drexel University).
Edison and Newman Room, Houghton Library
Hours
For further information, contact Hope Mayo at 617-495-2444
Middle Babylonian Tablet. Regarding the deity
Shamash (replica).
February 7 - August 10, 2012
The Semitic Museum: From the Tigris to the Euphrates
The Semitic Museum curates and exhibits artifacts garnered from the broad geographic region encompassing the countries of the Middle East. The exhibit represents both the current museum displays and parts of its collection regularly studied by students and scholars of the ancient world.
Cabot Science Library
Hours
For further information, contact Reed Lowrie at 617-496-5534
February 1 - April 30, 2012
Transmission/Transformation: Sounding China in Enlightenment Europe
The Enlightenment was fascinated by all things from China—including its music. First transmitted to Europe by Jesuit missionaries, Enlightenment thinkers and musicians eagerly reconstructed and re-imagined this completely different musical culture. The exhibition, curated by a group of graduate students in Music, explores the ways in which Chinese music made its way from the Middle Kingdom onto the operatic stages and into the homes of eighteenth-century Europe.
Richard F. French Gallery, Loeb Music Library
Hours
For further information, contact Patricia O'Brien at 617-495-2795
Portrait of Rousseau, from Engraved illustrations for Les Oeuvres de J.-J. Rousseau, citoyen de Genève, ... (Paris1793-1800). Typ 715.93.753. Houghton Library.
January 16 - March 23, 2012
Rousseau and Human Rights
This year marks the 300th birthday of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose writings have profoundly affected the development of modern political and social thought. Focusing on human rights, this exhibition includes both his political writings and his equally influential novel, Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse. Curated by Tali Zechory, graduate student in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, it is offered in conjunction with French 242, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, taught by Christie McDonald with Stanley Hoffmann.
Amy Lowell Room, Houghton Library
Hours
For details contact Leslie Morris, 617-495-2449
Textiles, by Bowie Aleah. 1st Prize for Sense of Place and Best in Show.
December 15, 2011 - November 15, 2012
Harvard College
Annual International Photo Contest
Photos taken by Harvard students who have studied, worked, interned, or done research abroad during the past year are on exhibit. For more information on the contest, see the contest and exhibition page.
Level B, first and third floor display cases, Lamont Library
Hours
For details contact Lynn Sayers at 617-495-2455
Ferrante Imperato, Dell’historia natural.... Naples, 1599
October 27, 2011 - March 17, 2012
Cabinets of Curiosity and Rooms of Wonder
Modern museums and art galleries have their origins in late Renaissance European private collections of artifacts gathered for study and admiration. This exhibition documents this fascinating intersection of science and art, and explores the shift from private repositories to public institutions. The exhibition, curated by Florence Fearrington, HRPBA ’61, draws on her private collection as well as material from Harvard’s Houghton Library, Ernst Mayr Library of Comparative Zoology, Botany Library and Countway Library of Medicine.
Edison and Newman Room, Houghton Library
Hours
For further information, contact Tom Horrocks at 617-495-2442
Theodore Roosevelt as a freshman, December 1876. Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library (520.12-001)
October 17, 2011 - August 31, 2012
The Harvard Years: Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1880
Documents and photographs from Harvard College Library's Theodore Roosevelt Collection trace the career of this eminent graduate as student, alumnus, and overseer. The exhibition is reprised in honor of Harvard's 375th anniversity.
Theodore Roosevelt Gallery, Pusey Library
Hours are 9am - 5pm on weekdays, excluding holidays.
For details contact Wallace Dailey at 617-384-7938
Postcard, "The Kiss of the Oceans, 1915", designed by Charles Delisle-Holland for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.
October 3, 2011 - February 15, 2012
Visions and Revisions: The Cartographic Construction of Canals
Canals represent major achievements of civil engineering, but they often originated in schemes that were initially derided as the quixotic visions of impractical dreamers. In many cases, the major proponents of canals were motivated as much by utilitarian concerns as by an idealistic quest to dissolve barriers between different regions, cultures, and bodies of water. This exhibit explores the cartographic trail left by some of the most ambitious of these projects, including China’s Grand Canal, the Erie Canal, the Suez Canal, and the Panama Canal. It will examine the physical, political, and ideological obstacles that had to be overcome before these visions could be realized. In many cases, the initial plans were drastically revised, new solutions were improvised, or the entire enterprise was postponed for another generation of dreamers.
Map Gallery Hall, Pusey Library
Hours
For further information, contact Joseph Garver at
617-496-3670
Wheatley, Phillis (1753-1784). Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (London: Printed for A. Bell, bookseller, Aldgate; and sold by Messrs. Cox and Berry, King-street,
Boston, 1773). Houghton *AC85.Aℓ245.Zy773w
October 1, 2011 - April 15, 2012
Shades in the Grove:
Literary Landmarks & Authorial Abodes of Old Harvard Yard 1820-1950
Harvard Yard lies at the heart of America’s most venerable literary village, one which shapes and reshapes itself with every freshman class, and where one can find the remarkably crisscrossed paths of generations of American writers. This exhibition describes some of those evanescent villagers.
Third floor display case,
Lamont Library
Hours
For details, contact Lynn Sayers at
617-495-2455
Kuwabara Shigeo 桑原茂夫, ed. Gendaishi techō: Bessatsu: Izumi Kyōka: Yōjo to gensō no majutsushi 現代詩手帳：別冊：泉鏡花：妖女と幻想の魔術師. Tōkyō: Shichōsha, 1972.
June 3, 2011 - May 15, 2012
2011 Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize
Established in 1977, the Visiting Committee Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting recognizes and encourages book collecting by undergraduates at Harvard. Students competing for the annual prize submit an annotated bibliography and an essay on their collecting efforts, the influence of mentors, the experience of searching for, organizing and caring for items, and the future direction of the collection.
Second and third floor display cases, Lamont Library
Hours
For details, contact Lynn Sayers at 617-495-2455
"Deer Tipi of Mary and John Mountain Chief" by Olga Hannon and Jessie Wilber. Peigan Blackfeet (tipi owners). Plate 10, Blackfeet Indian Tipis: Design and Legend, 1976. (Tozzer SPEC.COLL. MUS.120.27.200.3 PFOLIO)
May 4, 2011 - May 11, 2012
Native Life in the Americas: Artists' Views
This exhibition
showcases the work of important though not well-known artists who focused on Native American life and culture.
On display are selected prints and books from the Tozzer Library collection, looking beyond the familiar 19th-century white male painters to include women artists, Native artists, and even one living artist. The exhibition also includes artists who were primarily illustrators, designers, and printmakers rather than painters.
Tozzer Library Gallery
Hours
For details contact Janet Steins at 617-495-1481
Permanent exhibition
Mercator Globes
Exhibition includes Gerard Mercator's terrestrial (1541) and celestial (1551) globes that reflect new discoveries in world geography and cosmography as well as new techniques in charting, printing, and globe making. Only 22 matched pairs survive, Harvard's being the only matched pair in America.
Mercator Case, Map Gallery Hall
Hours
For details call the Map Collection at 617-495-2417
