Exhibit Thumbnail Title Locations Subjects

Exhibits

Art in the Stacks

The Special Collections Research Center is known for being the University of Chicago Library’s center for rare books, manuscripts, and university archives. Nestled within these materials, there is a lesser known aspect of our collections—art. Art in the Stacks highlights these holdings with a selection of original paintings, drawings, and sculptures, in addition to artists’ books and other works on paper produced in the 20th and early 21st centuries. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

June 19 — Sept. 15, 2017

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Art

The Berlin Collection

Showcasing the collection of nearly 100,000 books and manuscripts purchased by William Rainey Harper in Berlin in 1891, which became the core of the University of Chicago Library's holdings and have had an abiding influence on the course of scholarly investigation at the University. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

Jan. 1 — Dec. 31, 1979

View web exhibit >> Subjects

University of Chicago Library

Firmness Commodity and Delight

Firmness, Commodity, and Delight was the inaugural exhibition in the new Special Collections gallery, running from May through July 2011. The exhibition celebrated the opening of the new SCRC exhibition gallery and the completion of the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library with a display of books, manuscripts, and archival drawings and photographs representing our collections in architecture. The exhibition also had two items provided by the architectural firms who designed the Mansueto and Special Collections spaces – one drawing each from Murphy/Jahn (Helmut Jahn) and Booth Hansen. The exhibition was presented in conjunction with "500 Years of the Illustrated Architecture Book," a city-wide festival marking the publication of the first illustrated book on architecture, the Fra Giocondo edition of Vitruvius's De architectura libri decem. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

May 9 — July 29, 2011

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Architecture

The Late Sketches and Autographs of Beethoven

The books in which Beethoven carried out his sketching can be identified as falling into one of three categories: collections of loose leaves, large sketchbooks, and pocket books. The first of these, loose leaves, were used by Beethoven early in his life (from around 1786 to 1799) to draft compositions, as well as to write out compositional exercises, often for the keyboard. These loose leaves were later collected, sorted, and sewn together into book format by the composer himself. Locations

Regenstein 3rd Floor Reading Room

June 21 — Dec. 14, 2019

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Music

Letters from Prison

This exhibit draws together letters written by incarcerated people, across time and space. The centerpiece and inspiration for the exhibit is the collected letters of Chris Vega to his brother. Mr. Vega has been imprisoned by the Illinois Department of Corrections almost continuously since 2007. Juxtaposed with Mr. Vega’s letters and poems are published works written by or for incarcerated people, from the collection at the University of Chicago Library. Locations

Regenstein 4th Floor Reading Room

Aug. 27 — Dec. 16, 2018

View web exhibit >>

Mapping the Young Metropolis

Between 1915 and 1940, a small faculty in the University of Chicago Department of Sociology, working with dozens of talented graduate students, intensively studied the city of Chicago . They aspired to use the approaches of social science in developing a new field of research, and they took the city as their laboratory. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

June 22 — Sept. 11, 2015

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Sociology Chicago and Illinois

Marie Tharp: Pioneering Oceanographer

A pioneer in her field, renowned cartographer Marie Tharp created the first scientific maps of the Atlantic Ocean floor with her partner Bruce Heezen. Her observations showed the topography and geographical landscape of the ocean bottom and were crucial to the development of the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift in the earth sciences. Locations



View web exhibit >> Subjects

History of Science Geography Geophysical Sciences

On Reading Spring

"On Reading Spring" is divided into six thematic sections, each offering a discreet meditation on the unfolding of the season through experiences commonly ascribed to spring: Refreshment, Vulnerability, Epiphany, Restoration, Tenderness, and Joy. By pairing a selection of the Special Collections Research Center’s rare and unusual published works with archival letters, diaries, photographs, musical manuscripts and early drafts of poems composed between March and June, "On Reading Spring" considers the ways in which diverse works reveal a sympathetic vernal experience across disciplines, cultures, and time periods. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Music Art Literature Photography

Poetic Associations: The Nineteenth-Century English Poetry Collection of Dr. Gerald N. Wachs

In the period between the French Revolution and the start of World War I, often called “the long nineteenth century,” English poetry enjoyed enormous popularity and respect. The Romantics and the Victorians, as we know them today, were celebrities and, often, close friends, part of a literary community that influenced their professional and personal lives. Dr. Gerald N. Wachs (1937-2013), working closely with his friend, bookseller Stephen Weissman of Ximenes Rare Books, collected their works, using as their guidebook the Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (CBEL), the standard primary bibliography of English literature. They sought the finest copies, whenever possible ones that were presented by the author to other writers, friends, or family members. The resulting collection of nearly 900 titles, on deposit from the Estate of Gerald Wachs at the University of Chicago Library, illuminates the life and works of these enduring poets. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

Sept. 21 — Dec. 31, 2015

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Literature

Red Press

Red Press: Radical Print Culture from St. Petersburg to Chicago represents the Bolshevik revolution as it was waged through broadsides, pamphlets, periodicals and posters. Many materials are drawn from the archive of Samuel N. Harper, son of the University’s founding president, the first American Russianist, and eyewitness to the revolution. Through these rare printed sources visitors can trace the worldwide spread of revolutionary and antirevolutionary media and ideas. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

Sept. 25 — Feb. 2, 2018

View web exhibit >> Subjects

History Slavic/Eastern Europe/Eurasia

The Salem Witch Trials: Legal Resources

The Salem Witch Trials divided the community. Neighbor testified against neighbor. Children against parents. Husband against wife. Children died in prisons. Families were destroyed. Churches removed from their congregations some of the persons accused of witchcraft. After the Court of Oyer and Terminer was dissolved, the Superior Court of Judicature took over the witchcraft cases. They disallowed spectral evidence. Most accusations of witchcraft then resulted in acquittals. Locations



View web exhibit >> Subjects

American History U.S. Law

Super Metroid: A 20th Anniversary Retrospective

This exhibit celebrates the art of the videogame as seen in one of its early classics. Additionally, this exhibit explores the creative activity that lies beyond the game itself, from concept art and promotional materials to the fan art the game still inspires twenty years later. Locations

The Joseph Regenstein Library

Jan. 28 — March 22, 2014

View web exhibit >> Subjects

Arts

Tensions in Renaissance Cities

Rome, Florence, Geneva, London; Renaissance cities used art and literature to express their growing pains. After the Black Death, recovering cities developed in a geography of interdependence, connected by fluctuating kingdoms, mercantile networks, and the newborn printing press. This exhibit charts the tensions of capitals from Venice to Mexico City as they looked eastward, westward, backward toward antiquity, or upward to the celestial geographies offered by magic, science, and theology. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

March 27 — June 9, 2017

View web exhibit >> Subjects

European History

The University of Chicago Centennial Catalogues

This online presentation reproduces the complete text and accompanying images from four University of Chicago Centennial Exhibition Catalogues, published in conjunction with a series of physical exhibitions organized by the Department of Special Collections to celebrate the 1991-92 Centennial of the University of Chicago. Locations

Special Collections Research Center

Jan. 1 — Feb. 1, 1993

View web exhibit >> Subjects

University of Chicago