Past Exhibitions

September 14, 2001, through January 13, 2002

The brilliant and celebrated writer, dramatist, aesthete, wit, and self-proclaimed "lord of language" was the focus of Oscar Wilde: A Life in Six Acts, originally organized by the British Library. Wilde's (1854–1900) rise to success as a literary and social figure was meteoric. His decline to notoriety and disgrace was equally dramatic. Twelve years after publishing his first work of fiction, in 1888, he was dead at the age of forty-six, buried in a pauper's grave on the outskirts of Paris.

Banner image
May 23 through August 19, 2001

Over 120 extraordinary drawings from this superb collection of over two thousand European and American sheets were on view. The selection encompassed all drawing and watercolor media, including ink, chalk, charcoal, crayon, and graphite.

Battista image
January 25 through May 6, 2001

Drawing upon the Morgan's collection of Poyer manuscripts, the exhibition also included choice loans of drawings and manuscripts from this country and abroad.

Image of Poyet manuscript detail
September 28, 2000, through January 7, 2001

Drawn from the Morgan's Ruskin collections, among the world's most comprehensive, the exhibition explored his sweeping impact through drawings, sketchbooks, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, and other objects.

Image of Ruskin
May 25 through September 10, 2000

More than two hundred dazzling and finely crafted objects of metal, stone, wood, and other prized materials characterize the art of Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur, a traveling exhibition that explored one of the greatest technological achievements of Near Eastern archaeology.

Image of Great Lyre
February 11 through April 30, 2000

Surveying the finest Northern European drawings in the Morgan's collections, this exhibition featured over one hundred works spanning the Gothic through the Flemish Baroque periods.

Henrick Goltzius image
September 16, 1999 through January 9, 2000

Approximately 100 manuscripts, letters, rare printed documents, objects, maps, and published writings—drawn primarily from the collections of the Morgan; the Gilder Lehrman Collection, on deposit at the Morgan; and the Huntington Library—were included.

Image of George Washington lifemask
May 20 through August 29, 1999

This milestone exhibition—the Morgan's first devoted exclusively to twentieth-century art—served as the centerpiece of the institution's yearlong celebration of its seventy-fifth anniversary.

January 27 through May 2, 1999

Over one hundred masterpieces from Sir Paul Getty's renowned collection were on view at the Morgan

Image of Bonet Binding