Explore a selection of featured online and in-person exhibits.
See what's on display and opening soon in the Penn Libraries.
On view from January 20 to April 14, 2023. The Shadow and Light project, compiled by poet and activist Beau Beausoleil, memorializes Iraqi academics assassinated between 2003-2012. For this exhibition, Middle East Studies librarian Heather Hughes and Associate Professor of Arabic Literature Huda Fakhreddine selected 20 pieces from the 60 individuals commemorated in the larger project.
On view from December 5, 2022 to March 31, 2023. During his 1838-1839 travels through the Levant and Egypt, Roberts’ sketches captured layers of history and living cultures that inspired him. Looking beyond his artistic legacy, this exhibit explores his influence on archaeology in the region.
Opening April 6, 2023. In 2019 the Ashley Bryan Center donated the archive of the renowned artist, author, and humanitarian Ashley Bryan, who died last year at the age of 98, to the Kislak Center at the Penn Libraries. This exhibition explores his century-long story, the story of one man — seeking his place in a world that did not always welcome him, finding himself through observation and expression, and using his creative gifts to make sense of his life and to help others to do the same.
The author, artist, and humanitarian Ashley Bryan responded to Civil Rights protests about police bias and brutality in the 1960s with this series of drawings, made from his studio overlooking Tremont Avenue in the Bronx. The signs carried by these protesters speak to today’s issues as well: “Stop Police Brutality Now,” “End Police Bias Now,” “Jim Crow Must Go,” “Freedom Now,” “We Demand Decent Police Now,” and “Justice Now.”
Ashley Bryan—renowned artist, writer, storyteller, and humanitarian—created thousands of drawings, paintings, collages, and linoleum block prints over the course of his long and productive life. This exhibition highlights Bryan’s portrayals of strong and resourceful women in his art. Many of these works were made for books of poetry, including Freedom Over Me, ABC of African American Poetry, and Aneesa Lee and the Weaver’s Gift.
This research portal provides online access to more than 2,500 items from the collection of Marian Anderson, one of the most celebrated singers of the twentieth century. The body of primary sources in the collection — including letters, diaries, journals, interviews, recital programs, and private recordings — spans the Philadelphia-born musician’s six-decade career as an opera singer and advocate for social justice.
The Arnold and Deanne Kaplan Collection of Early American Judaica teaches us about the everyday lives, families, communal institutions, religious organizations, voluntary associations, businesses, and political circumstances of Jewish life throughout the western hemisphere over four centuries. It also provides a unique window into the changing character of colonial and early American life and culture in the United States. The collection is more than the sum of its parts. It is the constellation of unlimited potential connections among its thousands of items dating from the time of colonial settlement in the 16th century into the era of mass migration at the end of the 19th century.
Drawing on the wonderfully diverse collections of Philadelphia institutions, this exhibit attempts to encompass the broadest possible scope of ideas and material manifestations associated with the European Renaissance. Through a selection of extraordinary manuscripts, cuttings, and incunables, it explores the intellectual and artistic depth of a time of political, religious, and technological transformation in Europe.
