Footwear from the Stuart Weitzman Collection of Historic Shoes

April 20, 2018 - October 08, 2018

The exhibition considers the story of the shoe from the perspectives of collection, consumption, presentation, and production with more than 100 pairs of shoes on view. The exhibition will explore larger trends in American economic history, from industrialization to the rise of consumer culture, with a focus on women’s contributions as makers, designers, and entrepreneurs.

Virtual Tour

Hudson Rising explores 200 years of ecological change and environmental activism along “the most interesting river in America” through artifacts, media, and celebrated Hudson River School paintings. The exhibition reflects on how human activity has impacted the river and, in turn, how the river environment has shaped industrial development, commerce, tourism, and environmental awareness. The exhibition also explores how experts in various fields are currently creating ways to restore and re-engineer areas of the river in response to climate change.

Much more than a body of water, the Hudson and its surroundings have been the home for humans and hundreds of species of fish, birds, and plants; offered an escape for city-dwellers; and witnessed battles over the uses of the river valley and its resources. For over 200 years, writers and artists have captured the river in paintings, drawings, literature, and photographs, and surveyors and scientists have mapped and measured its every parcel.

: MODERN ART AND REVOLUTION

October 11, 2013 - February 23, 2014

Exhibit Identity /  Website / Merchandising / Decal Wall Murals / Silkscreened title / printed on mixed materials

The Armory Show at 100 features approximately 100 masterworks from the 1913 Armory Show that powerfully impacted American audiences. The exhibition included American and European paintings and sculpture that represented the scandalous avant-garde and the range of early twentieth-century American art. It also included historical works (dating through the nineteenth century) that the original organizers gathered in an effort to show the progression of modern art leading up to the controversial abstract works that have become the Armory Show’s hallmark.  To See Online Exhibit Click Here

Exhibit review1

Exhibit Review2

February 03, 2017 - April 30, 2017

For more than 300 years, New York has played a central role in the development of modern tattooing, from its origins in Native American body art to the introduction of the craft by sailors in colonial New York, from the development of a New York style to the three-decade tattoo ban instituted in 1961 and the subsequent underground tattoo culture. This diverse history is explored in Tattooed New York, an exciting exhibition where history and pop culture converge to tell the complex story of a fascinating art form in America’s cultural nucleus.

Among the 250+ elements on view are the New-York Historical Society’s set of 1710 Four Indian Kings prints and one of the earliest recordings (1706) in Western accounts of a pictograph done by a Seneca warrior representing his tattoos and personal signature. Highlights of the exhibition include Thomas Edison’s electric pen and early 20th-century tattoo machinery; ramatic ideshow banners and cabinet cards; a large selection of designs by the Bowery pioneers of modern tattooing, including Sam O'Reilly, Lew Alberts, Bob Wicks, Ed Smith, and Bill Jones; rare photography documenting the tattoo ban years and artwork by mainstream visual artists who tattooed during the ban; and works by some of the finest New York tattoo artists of today. 

November 21, 2014 - February 22, 2015

Annie Leibovitz: Pilgrimage charts a new direction for one of America’s best-known living photographers. Unlike her staged and carefully lit portraits made on assignment for magazines and advertising clients, the photographs in this exhibition were taken simply because Leibovitz was moved by the subject. The images speak in a commonplace language to the photographer’s curiosity about the world she inherited, spanning landscapes both dramatic and quiet, interiors of living rooms and bedrooms, and objects that are talismans of past lives.

The exhibition, which includes 70 photographs taken between April 2009 and May 2011, is organized for the Smithsonian American Art Museum by guest curator Andy Grundberg, former New York Times photography critic and associate provost and dean of undergraduate studies at the Corcoran College of Art + Design. 

On display at the New-York Historical Society since 2015 is a masterpiece by Pablo Picasso – the painted theater curtain for the ballet Le Tricorne(1919). It is the first work by Picasso, and one with great wall power and a New York history, to enter New-York Historical's collection.

Pablo Picasso painted the stage curtain for the two-act ballet The Three-Cornered Hat (El sombrero de tres picos or Le tricorne). The ballet and curtain were commissioned by the impresario Sergei Diaghilev for his avant-garde, Paris-based Ballets Russes, the most influential ballet company of the twentieth-century. The ballet was choreographed by Léonide Massine with music by the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. It premiered on July 22, 1919, at the Alhambra Theatre in London with sets, costume designs, and the monumental stage curtain created by Picasso. Picasso biographer John Richardson once called “Le Tricorne” the artist’s “supreme theatrical achievement.” The production, which was conceived by Diaghilev and Massine during a trip to Spain, was enhanced by its many Spanish collaborators, including Picasso who also designed the costumes and set for the ballet.

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Harry Potter: A History of Magic

October 5, 2018 – January 27, 2019

http://harrypotter.nyhistory.org/

A British Library exhibition at the New-York Historical Society

Capturing the traditions of folklore and magic at the heart of the Harry Potter stories, Harry Potter: A History of Magic unveils century-old treasures including rare books, manuscripts, and magical objects from the collections of the British Library and New-York Historical Society—with original material from Harry Potter publisher Scholastic and J.K. Rowling’s own archives. From medieval descriptions of dragons and griffins to the origins of the sorcerer’s stone, explore the subjects studied at Hogwarts and see original drafts and drawings by J.K. Rowling as well as Harry Potter illustrator Jim Kay.

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. publication of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, see cover artwork designed by illustrator Brian Selznick for the 20th-anniversary edition of the Harry Potter series, published by Scholastic in June 2018. Plus, view Mary GrandPré’s illustrations created for Scholastic’s original editions of the novels—on display to the public for the first time—as well as costumes and set models from the award-winning play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The exhibition is accompanied by a special audio tour featuring the voice of actress Natalie Dormer—available to ticketholders as a free Audible download—providing in-depth content on the objects on view.

October 05, 2012 - May 27, 2013

Exhibit Identity / Website / Merchandises / Decal Wall Murals/ Dura -trans Graphic Panels 

The Second World War (1939–1945) was the most widespread, destructive, and consequential conflict in history. WWII & NYC is an account of how New York and its metropolitan region contributed to Allied victory. The exhibition also explores the captivating, sobering, and moving stories of how New Yorkers experienced and confronted the challenges of “total war.”
Click here to visit the WWII & NYC site 

Exhibit Review_NYT

October 04, 2017 - April 22, 2018

Exhibit Identity / Installation / Website / Merchandising / Decal Wall Murals/ Silkscreened title / Printed on mixed materials

The Vietnam War. Populating a 3,000-square-foot gallery with interpretive displays, digital media, artwork, artifacts, photographs, and documents, the exhibit provides an enlightening account of the causes, progression, and impact of the war. Spanning the duration of U.S. involvement in Indochina from 1945 to 1975, the narrative incorporates perspectives that cover both the home front and the war front

To see Online Exhibit

Exhibit Review

Traveling Exhibit Review @ WWI Museum and Memorial

Traveling Exhibit Review @ Heinz History Center

May 25, 2012 - September 02, 2012

Exhibit Identity / Installation / Website / Merchandising / Decal Wall Murals/ Silkscreened title / Printed on mixed materials

Exhibit sections explore such topics as: the nutritional properties of colonial beer and early New York brewers in the age of revolution; infrastructure innovations and the importance of access to clean water; large-scale brewing in nineteenth-century New York and the influence of immigration; the influence of temperance and impact of prohibition; bottling, canning, refrigeration and other technological advances; and the state of the city’s breweries in the age of mass production. Featured artifacts and documents include: a 1779 account book from a New York City brewer who sold beer and ale to both the British and patriot sides; sections of early nineteenth-century wooden pipes from one of the city’s first water systems; a bronze medal that commemorates an 1855 New York State temperance law; beer trays from a variety of late nineteenth-century brewers; sign from the campaign to repeal prohibition; and a selection of advertisements from Piels, Rheingold and Schaefer, beloved hometown brewers. The exhibit concludes with a beer hall that features a selection of favorite New York City and State artisanal beers. 

March 18, 2016 - September 25, 2016

Exhibit Identity Design, Merchandising / Decal Wall Murals/ Silkscreen title /  Painted wall murals

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Mo Willems’ beloved children’s book characters speak with a distinctly New York accent, from Trixie’s very first Brooklyn “Aggle Flaggle Klabble!” utterance to the Nichols and May-esque comedy duo of Elephant and Piggie to a public transportation-obsessed Pigeon.

June 21, 2013 - September 01, 2013

Neon sign / Decal Wall Murals/ Banner

With his calligraphic brushstrokes and densely cluttered, multi-figured compositions, Reginald Marsh recorded the vibrancy and energetic pulse of New York City. In paintings, prints, watercolors, and photographs, he captured the animation and visual turbulence that made urban New York life an exhilarating spectacle. His work depicted the visual energy of the city, its helter-skelter signs, newspaper and magazine headlines, and the crowded conditions of its street life and recreational pastimes.

His subjects were not glamorous or affluent New Yorkers, but those in the middle and lower class—Bowery bums, burlesque queens, Coney Island musclemen, park denizens, subway riders and post-flapper era sirens. Marsh was fascinated by the crass glamour, gaudiness and sexuality these city inhabitants exhibited in public, as well as by the humanity expressed by those living under severe economic and social duress. His technical combination of choppy brushwork and thinly applied tempera created the effect of a continual surface flickering, which causes the eye to move without rest from place to place across the painting. Marsh heightened this sense of agitated and accelerated movement by means of asymmetrically framed scenes and avoidance of an obvious focal point. The result was a sequential unfolding of episodes across his canvas surfaces, which evoked the transience, motion, and vitality of New York City in the 1930s.

NYT REVIEW

November 13, 2015 - April 17, 2016

Every 15 minutes, for nearly a year, 500 men, women, and children rose majestically into “the egg,” Eero Saarinen’s idiosyncratic theater at the 1964 World’s Fair. It was very likely their first introduction to computer logic. Computing was not new. But for the general public, IBM’s iconic pavilion was a high profile coming out party, and Silicon City will focus on this moment to introduce New York’s pivotal role in the Digital Age.

Using images, artifacts, interactives, and oral histories, the exhibition explores local innovations that were key to computer development, from vacuum tubes and punched cards to transistors, and highlights pioneering work after the 1964 World's Fair, such as the computer graphics revolution born in New York City a decade later. Long before Silicon Valley became synonymous with all things digital, New York was a hub for imagining, developing, and selling the technology that ultimately reshaped entertainment, commerce, and daily life. 

Silicon City: Computer History Made in New York was developed with the generous cooperation of IBM

 

June 30, 2017 - October 09, 2017

 Eloise at the Museum reveals the creative collaboration between cabaret star Kay Thompson (1909–1998) and the young illustrator Hilary Knight (b. 1926) that brought the precocious character to life. The exhibition showcases more than 75 objects, ranging from original manuscript pages to sketchbooks, portraits, photographs, and vintage dolls. Organized by The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, where it debuted earlier this year, New-York Historical’s presentation fully immerses visitors into Eloise’s world with evocations of the grand lobby of the Plaza Hotel, her bedroom―complete with a storytelling corner―and her bubbly “bawthroom,” where she often made mischief. A host of family activities bring the Plaza’s most famous resident to life throughout the exhibition's run, inviting young visitors to explore the exhibition in creative ways.

Featuring Projection Mapping of the UN's logo for "Israel at 70" event: The backdrop was recreated on a 50ft x 30ft  for the 70th anniversary to the vote to enact Israel as a state.

Actual mapping starts at 02:50

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AV technical support: ATD Audio Visual

Motion graphics: Jeanne Angel

Back Drop Graphic: Kira Hwang

The avant-garde sculptor Elie Nadelman (1882-1946) is widely recognized for his elegant, modernist works. Less familiar is the pioneering folk art collection he established with his wife, an impressive trove of some 15,000 objects in 1937. Influenced by the “peasant arts” of his native Poland and other European countries, Nadelman began collecting after immigrating to New York City in 1914. There he met and married the wealthy and cosmopolitan Viola Spiess Flannery (1878-1962) in 1919, with whom he collected American and European folk art with an all-consuming passion. The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman celebrates their extraordinary trove with the first major examination of the collection, showcasing more than 200 objects displayed to evoke the couple's groundbreaking Museum of Folk and Peasant Arts in Riverdale, NY. New-York Historical's holdings are exhibited alongside loans of key Nadelman sculptures to illuminate the intersection between folk art and modernism. Before its presentation at the New-York Historical Society, the traveling exhibition was shown at the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico. After the N-YHS venue, it travels to the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Massachusetts, in September 2016. The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, Making It Modern: The Folk Art Collection of Elie and Viola Nadelman (D Giles Limited, 2015)

July 02, 2014 - October 19, 2014

Exhibit Identity / Merchandising / Decal Wall Murals/ Silkscreened title

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of Madeline’s publication, the New-York Historical Society honors the beloved schoolgirl and her creator Ludwig Bemelmans with an exhibition of more than 90 original artworks.

In addition to drawings from all six Madeline books, the exhibition will also feature Bemelmans' drawings of the old Ritz Hotel in New York, murals from a rediscovered Paris bistro, panels from the Onassis yacht, and a cache of fabrics based on an early picture book.