Archived Exhibition Resources

 In conjunction with the exhibition Star Quality: The World of Noel Coward, being held at the Library for the Performing Arts through August 18, 2012, is an online companion exhibition.

The abolition of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was a long, arduous, and tortuous process that spanned almost nine decades. Ultimately, a conjunction of economic, political, social, and moral factors contributed to the slow extinction of the legal slave trade and the end of the illegal introductions that, in several countries, had taken its place. Explore this forgotten story with the help of essays, books, articles, maps, and illustrations.

Over the course of nearly 20 centuries, millions of East Africans crossed the Indian Ocean and its several seas and adjoining bodies of water in their journey to distant lands, from Arabia and Iraq to India and Sri Lanka. They Africanized the Indian Ocean world and helped shape the societies they entered and made their own. The African Diaspora in the Indian Ocean World traces their truly unique and fascinating story of struggles and achievements across a variety of societies, cultures, religions, languages and times.

Isaac Newton is a legendary figure whose mythical dimension perpetually threatens to overshadow the actual man. The story of the apple falling from the tree may or may not be true, but his revolutionary discoveries and their importance to the Enlightenment era and beyond are undeniable. The Newtonian Moment: Science and the Making of Modern Culture explores the many facets of Newton's colossal accomplishments, as well as the debates over the kind of knowledge most worth having that these accomplishments engendered.

Collected by generations of Russian royalty, the spectacular books that once lined the shelves of their palace libraries are a tangible legacy of the Romanov dynasty that ruled the Moscow Tsardom and the Russian Empire for 300 years, until the Russian Revolution of 1917. On view for the first time in The Romanovs: Their Empire, Their Books are highlights from the Romanov collections held by The New York Public Library.

This exhibition presents a selection of representative collections and objects which illustrate the growth and development of the Center's holdings since Arthur Schomburg's death. These extensive and diverse resources reflect the dramatic changes that have taken place in the African and African Diasporan experience since 1938, as well as the new questions scholars and laypersons alike have been asking about black history and culture since that time.

Over the millennia, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have each created a rich body of founding texts and interpretive underpinnings for their respective faiths, each of which derives from the teachings of Abraham. This exhibition treats these three great Abrahamic religions, setting forth in splendid and historic detail the complementarities and differences among them, explaining their development, and exploring their lived experience through public and private prayer.

This online exhibition spotlights the professional performances by dancers, actors, slack- and tightrope walkers, jugglers, acrobats, singers, instrumental artists, authors, political activists, and orators who toured the United States from the time of the Louisiana Purchase (1803) through the 19th century.

To celebrate the reopening of its Lincoln Center home, now named the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts presents Transformations, an exhibition on transformations inherent to the creative process. This first exhibition in the renovated Library will fill both redesigned galleries and features treasures drawn from the nine million objects in the Library's collections in music, dance, theater, and recorded sound.

Urban Neighbors is a celebration of the diversity and abundance of New York City wildlife, as documented in artistically striking visual images selected from The New York Public Library's vast resources. This online exhibition underscores how artists from various places have since the mid-17th century portrayed the animals that are New York City’s "urban neighbors."