THE MORGAN CENTENNIAL SERIES

To celebrate the centennial of The Morgan Library & Museum — one of my favorite cultural institutions, stewarding some of the most influential works in the history of creative culture — I have chosen several items from the collection that I especially love to serve as springboards for larger conversations about art and life with some of the most interesting and creative women I know. We will be investigating questions like the nature of time and self, the art of observation and the art of vision, the relationship between memory and self-forgetfulness in creative work, and the power of being an outsider, lensed through Whitman and Dickinson, The Little Prince and Alice in Wonderland, the invisible women in the margins of classical music and the hidden philosophy in the margins of children’s books.

OCTOBER 15: HOW TO BE A LIVING POEM

A conversation with poet Marie Howe, lensed through the original manuscripts of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence and Walt Whitman’s “O Captain, My Captain!”

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NOVEMBER 1: HANDWRITING AND THE EVOLVING SELF

A conversation with artist, author, and podcaster Debbie Millman, lensed through dramatically different samples of Emily Dickinson’s handwriting from different periods of her life.

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NOVEMBER 12: CHILDREN’S BOOKS AS A PHILOSOPHY FOR LIVING

A conversation with Caldecott-winning children’s book artist and author Sophie Blackall, lensed through Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s original watercolors for The Little Prince, Beatrix Potter’s illustrated letters, and Lewis Carroll’s diary entry from the day he first told the story of Wonderland to the real-life Alice.

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FEBRUARY 4: CREATIVITY IN THE MARGINS OF CULTURE

A conversation with composer Paola Prestini, lensed through the music manuscripts of Fanny Mendelssohn (long attributed to her famous brother Felix) and Clara Schumann (who worked in her famous husband’s shadow) to open a broader reckoning with inclusion and exclusion in creative culture, the challenges and superpowers of working in the margins of the mainstream, and the long history of women owning their genius against the odds.

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