Event Calendar

The author-editor relationship is a collaborative partnership built on mutual respect, trust, and a shared commitment to creating the best possible work. It can also be a highly personal alliance. Eric Carle and editor Ann Beneduce worked together over five decades and developed a steadfast friendship. Ann published the first picture book Eric wrote and illustrated—1, 2, 3 to the Zoo in 1968—and she played a vital role in bringing The Very Hungry Caterpillar to life the following year. Eric followed Ann as she moved to different publishing houses, including Philomel, the imprint she created in the early 1980s. Ann continued to edit Eric’s books even after her retirement, including the 2015 publication The Nonsense Show. “Ann had the greatest influence on me,” acknowledged Eric. “We were well suited for each other.”

This exhibition explores the 50-year professional relationship between the beloved picture book artist, Eric Carle, and the legendary picture book editor, Ann Beneduce. It includes never-before-exhibited art, correspondence, and photographs.

Wed – Fri 10am – 4pm
Sat 10am – 5pm
Sun 12pm – 5pm
Mon & Tue CLOSED

Adult $15
Youth (ages 1 - 18), Student, Teacher, or Senior (65+) $8
Members FREE

West Gallery
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
125 West Bay Road

Amherst, MA

A key figure in the evolution of picture books, Margaret Wise Brown wrote Goodnight Moon (1947), The Runaway Bunny (1942), and other groundbreaking books. Brown was radical for her time, rejecting norms in children’s literature in favor of stories that reflected kids’ everyday experiences. Commissioning avant-garde artists to illustrate her books, Brown ushered in a new type of children’s literature—one bursting with bold sound and color. Since her death in 1952, Brown’s stories have continued to inspire generations of picture-book artists. As Brown wrote, “the important thing… is that the book goes on long after it is closed.”

The books featured in this exhibition include some of Brown’s most well-known titles, including collaborations with artists like Clement Hurd, Leonard Weisgard, and Garth Williams. There are also newly illustrated versions of older titles, books published from manuscripts discovered after Brown’s death, and a selection of vintage Little Golden Books. Books are arranged along the shelves of the Reading Library for visitors to read and explore. Additional books displayed on low tables invite visitors to talk, play, and create.  

Wed – Fri 10am – 4pm
Sat 10am – 5pm
Sun 12pm – 5pm
Mon & Tue CLOSED

Adult $15
Youth (ages 1 - 18), Student, Teacher, or Senior (65+) $8
Members FREE

Reading Library
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
125 West Bay Road

Amherst, MA

Come Together: 3,000 Years of Stories and Storytelling

Combining diverse artworks from across the Morgan’s collections and some exceptional loans, Come Together: 3,000 Years of Stories and Storytelling explores how stories shape our world. The exhibition showcases over 130 objects, including drawings, paintings, photographs, printed books, manuscripts, artifacts, comics, and more, fostering fresh encounters with beloved works of art and literature and presenting exciting new acquisitions. Throughout, Come Together unites modern and historical artworks, underscoring conceptual, thematic, and visual links between them and stimulating new interpretations and imaginative associations.

Come Together traces a trajectory from the universal to the specific, offering new perspectives on the cultural transmission of stories and their overall importance. The first section, “Belief and Belonging,” considers origin stories, epics, legends, and myths, while the second, “Shaping Stories,” sheds light on the creative process through the presentation of drafts, typescripts, and sketches, including a heavily annotated page of James Joyce’s Ulysses and Jean de Brunhoff’s earliest drawings of the perpetually popular pachyderm Babar. The heart of the exhibition, “Picture This!” demonstrates diverse approaches to visual storytelling through a wide array of objects, from Indian miniatures and shadow puppets to early films and the speech bubble.

Boundaries between imaginative and literal worlds are blurred in “Life Stories,” featuring texts and artworks that speak to personal experience, including Henry David Thoreau’s journals and artworks by Philip Guston, Nellie Mae Rowe, Nancy Spero, and Kara Walker. Saul Steinberg’s witty drawing, The West Side (1973), depicting the rest of the United States and the world as an adjunct to New York City, sets the tone for the final section, “New York Stories.” Here, artworks by Joe Baker, Stuart Davis, Keith Haring, Peter Hujar, and others reflect responses to the multicultural metropolis by visitors, immigrants, and native New Yorkers alike.

Tue - Thu, Sat & Sun 10:30am - 5pm
Fri 10:30am - 8pm

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 

Social climbing was a competitive sport in Tudor England, requiring a complex range of skills, strategies, and techniques. How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition invites you into a world of lace ruffs, jousting, hawks, bad handwriting, scandal, and political factions. Experience the playbooks, the people, and the spectacular fails, as courtiers tried to navigate the minefield of working for a boss who could shower you with riches or chop off your head.

The exhibition features more than 60 objects from the Folger’s collection to demonstrate the “rules” for how to be a successful courtier. They show how historical and literary figures ranging from royal advisors to household staff used cunning, cutthroat, and creative means to acquire power and curry favor with the Tudor monarchs.

Take the Tudor playbook and give it a 21st-century spin! Visit the Engagement Table in the exhibition gallery to create a playbook that highlights the risks you might take to become a power player. Draw your portrait, design a dinner menu, and come up with your own rule.

HIGHLIGHTS:

Portrait miniatures
As tokens of loyalty and affection, portrait miniatures were an intimate way to further one’s agenda. Power players commissioned Nicholas Hilliard and Isaac Oliver, the most talented and sought-after miniaturists in England, to paint these exquisitely detailed portraits, often set in locket-like gold frames. They were to be viewed privately, rather than hung on a wall for all to see.

Knights of the Garter
Becoming a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter was one of the highest honors you could receive in Tudor England. Sir Gilbert Dethick, as Garter King of Arms, was responsible for the ceremonial aspects of the order. These velvet-bound books, gifted by him to Queen Elizabeth I, included the coats of arms of the Knights of the Garter.

Playbooks
To be a power player in Tudor England, you needed to study the playbooks. Potential senior advisors to the queen studied “courtesy books” and “mirrors for princes”, which described the qualities, skills, and behaviors necessary to succeed at court.

Books on view include a copy of Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince printed in 1584 in London, a political treatise that tells leaders how to gain and retain power.

Sun 11am - 6pm
Mon CLOSED
Tue & Wed 11am - 6pm
Thu, Fri, & Sat 11am - 9pm

FREE admission
However, we recommend that you reserve a pay-what-you-will timed-entry pass, with a suggested donation starting at $15.

Folger Shakespeare Library
201 E Capitol Street SE

Washington, DC

Bloody Work: Lexington and Concord 1775 explores the early months of 1775 in Massachusetts, the battles of April 19, and their immediate aftermath, giving an account of the events that ignited a nearly eight-year Revolutionary War between the British Empire and its American colonies. In addition to original historical letters, documents, maps, and artwork from the Clements Library's holdings, the exhibition features never-before-exhibited manuscripts on loan from the collection of Dr. Gary Milan.

Mon - Wed, & Fri 9am - 4:30pm
Thu 10am - 4:30pm
Sat & Sun CLOSED

William Clements Library
University of Michigan
909 S. University Ave

Ann Arbor, MI