The Morgan Library & Museum presents Writing a Chrysanthemum: The Drawings of Rick Barton, opening June 10 and running through September 11, 2022. The first museum exhibition dedicated to this largely undiscovered, yet extraordinary and original draftsman, the exhibition will feature sixty drawings, two accordion- fold sketchbooks, and five printed works by Rick Barton (1928–1992). The title of the exhibition comes from a story Barton told Etel Adnan (1925–2021) in a San Francisco café in the early 1960s. Adnan, who was enthralled by Barton’s accordion-fold books, later wrote, “Rick Barton should have been a San Francisco legend.” However, he remained an obscure figure until now. Barton’s subjects range from the intimacy of his bedroom to the architecture of Mexican Rick Barton (1928-1992). Untitled [Seated figure in the Black Cat Café], September 27, 1960. Pen and ink, 16 3/8 × 10 1/4 in. (41.6 × 26 cm). Rick Barton papers (Collection 2374), UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles. cathedrals, and from the gathering places of Beat-era San Francisco to the sinuous contours of plants. Working almost exclusively in pen or brush and ink, he captured these subjects in a web of lines that evokes both drawing and writing. Though at times his work is simple and economical, more often it is complex and kaleidoscopic.