Current Exhibitions Announced for New-York Historical Society

The New York Historical Society has announced its exhibitions through March 2012, including REVOLUTION! THE ATLANTIC WORLD REBORN and more.

REVOLUTION! THE ATLANTIC WORLD REBORN- Until April 15, 2012

The path-breaking exhibition Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn, is the first exhibition to relate the American, French and Haitian struggles as a single global narrative. Spanning decades of enormous political and cultural changes, from the triumph of British imperial power in 1763 to the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815, Revolution! traces how an ideal of popular sovereignty, introduced through the American fight for independence, soon sparked more radical calls for a recognition of universal human rights, and set off attacks on both sides of the Atlantic against hereditary privilege and slavery. Texts and audio guides are in English, French and Haitian Krèyol. Highlights on view:

The original Stamp Act as it was passed by Parliament in 1765, setting off the riots that led to the American Revolution, on loan from the Parliamentary Archives, London, displayed for the first time outside the U.K.

The only known surviving copy of the first printing of the Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804, National Archives, London), recently discovered and exhibited here to the public for the first time

Napoleon's authorization to French negotiators to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States (1803, New-York Historical Society), as a direct consequence of the Haitian rebellion

MAKING AMERICAN TASTE: NARRATIVE ART FOR A NEW DEMOCRACY - Until September 9, 2012

Featuring fifty-five works from New-York Historical’s great collection, Making American Taste casts new light on both the history of American art and the formation of American cultural ideals during a crucial period from roughly the 1830s to the late 1860s. The exhibition includes the long-awaited debut after conservation of Louis Lang’s famed monumental history painting of 1862: Return of the 69th (Irish Regiment) from the Sea of War. The painting is a centerpiece of our commemoration of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

FREEDOM NOW: PHOTOGRAPHS BY PLATON - Until April 29, 2012

This installation of large-scale images by the celebrated photographer Platon, gives the historic struggle of the 1950s and 1960s a stirring contemporary presence. Julian Bond—statesman, professor, writer and a leader in the Civil Rights movement—has written a personal introduction to the exhibition. Among the subjects of the photographs are the Little Rock Nine, whose attempt to enter Little Rock Central High School in 1957 became a national cause célèbre; Joseph A. McNeil and Franklin E. McCain, participants in the 1960 Greensboro lunch-counter sit-in; Southern Christian Leadership Conference members Joseph Lowery, Fred Shuttlesworth, C.T. Vivian and Andrew Young; Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee leaders James Lawson, Robert Moses and Diane Nash; Chris and Maxine McNair, parents of Denise McNair, murdered in the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church; Black Panthers Kathleen Cleaver, Emory Douglas and Bobby Rush; Muhammad Ali; Harry Belafonte; Congressman John Lewis; and Jesse Jackson, Sr.

BEAUTIES OF THE GILDED AGE: PETER MARIÉ’S MINIATURES OF SOCIETY WOMEN - Rotation One: Until March 11, 2012, Rotation Two: March 13, 2012 – July 8, 2012

Between 1889 and 1903, New York socialite Peter Marié (1825–1903) commissioned portrait miniatures of women whom he believed epitomized female beauty. His collection of nearly 300 watercolor-on-ivory miniatures stands today as a vivid document of New York’s Gilded Age aristocracy. Beauties of the Gilded Age presents likenesses of many well-known women of the era, including legendary actress Maude Adams, First Lady Frances Folsom Cleveland, artist Lydia Emmet, and the doyenne of etiquette, Emily Post. The fragile and rarely exhibited portraits will be displayed in four-month rotations in a special new gallery designed for intimate viewing.

URBAN VIEWS: AMERICAN CITIES 1717-1986 - Until April 22, 2012

This exhibition features large scale views of American cities. Throughout the centuries, cartographers and artists have been engaged in attempts to show the cityscape as a grandiose entity. This overall concept of the cityscape will feature works from the eighteenth century to the present, including maps, prints and photographs. The exhibition will include John Harris after William Burgis, A South Prospect of Ye Flourishing City of New York in the Province of New York in America (The Burgis View), 1717; a manuscript map of the Hudson River, 1721; Eadweard Muybridge’s Panorama of San Francisco, 1877; the Thomas Air Views of New York City, 1935-1980; and Claude Samton’s Photomontage of Canal Street, 1986.

REMEMBERING 9/11 - Until February 2012

The exhibition presents a selection of photographs taken by professional and amateur photographers in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center (Originally collected in the independent exhibition here is new york: a democracy of photographs), it includes letters written to police officers and firefighters; objects that were placed in makeshift shrines around New York; images and texts from the New York Times “Portraits of Grief” series; photographs of the Tribute in Light; and drawings of the National September 11 Memorial, designed by architect Michael Arad with the assistance of landscape architect Peter Walker.

Photo: Erich Lessing