On Friday, September 25, the Museum closes at 6 pm and the Law Building is closed all day. 
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Hirsch Library
Exhibitions

Past Hirsch Exhibitions

Hirsch Library exhibitions feature volumes from the library’s collection of rare books. Did you miss seeing any exhibitions? Check out the links below to view the online versions.

“Sing a Song of Achievement”: A History of the Limited Editions Club Publications

May 20–September 5, 2026
 
In 1929, George Macy launched the Limited Editions Club, an American fine press publisher he hoped would rival overseas houses, like William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, known for their exquisitely artful volumes of great works of literature. For the succeeding decades, the LEC’s pairings of canonical authors and artists, crafted with the finest available materials, would come to represent the pinnacle of American bookmaking.
 
Following Macy’s death in 1956, the LEC would undergo changes in both ownership and public esteem. By the 1970s, many of its members were demanding refunds and leaving in droves, citing uninspired publications that lacked the quality and creative spark of the LEC’s earlier years.
 
At the start of the 1980s, the LEC’s ownership was transferred to retired stockbroker and investor Sidney (Sid) Shiff. Though unfamiliar with the publishing world, Shiff, along with his son, Ben, would revitalize the LEC, and in the process create a new era of American livres d’artistes (artists' books). This exhibition traces the trajectory, from the LEC’s outset through its eventual reemergence and reinvention.
 
Online
View the virtual edition of “Sing a Song of Achievement”: A History of the Limited Editions Club Publications
 

Looking North: Arctic Exploration in Print

January 28–May 16, 2026
 
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, a multitude of expeditions, both military and private, set forth to explore the Arctic regions. They sought to survey uncharted territory and achieve national and personal glory—objectives for which crew and commander alike risked their lives, as voyages frequently descended into years-long struggles for survival.
 
Among the watchful public, this “golden age” of Arctic exploration became a phenomenon of widespread cultural fascination. British and American print media teemed with depictions of Arctic explorers, the extraordinary landscapes they traversed, the native inhabitants they met, the animal life they encountered, and the tragedy and triumph they faced.
 
From expedition narratives and newspaper articles to natural history illustration and even children’s literature, Looking North: Arctic Exploration in Print examines how imagery of the polar North permeated the era’s print culture and traces the artistic echoes of the golden age into the modern day.
 
Online
View the virtual edition of Looking North: Arctic Exploration in Print.
 

Flashpoint! Protest Photography in Print, 1950–Present

October 9, 2025–January 24, 2026

Flashpoint! Protest Photography in Print, 1950–Present is a reading room exhibition focusing on global protest photography in print through photobooks, zines, posters, pamphlets, independent journals, and alternative newspapers that address protest and resistance from the 1950s on. Since its inception, photography has captured key historical moments and served as both a tool and a document of political protest. By placing photobooks in conversation with posters, DIY zines, and independent journals, Flashpoint! explores the diverse roles and aesthetics of the medium in its support of protest and resistance.

This hands-on reading room was organized by 10×10 Photobooks, a nonprofit organization that fosters engagement with the global photobook community. 

On-site
Hirsch Library is located on the lower level of the Beck Building.

Facts and Fantasy: Illustrations of the Natural World

April 23–October 4, 2025 
 
Book illustrations that feature natural elements are prevalent within the history of books. The urge to disseminate scientific discoveries through detailed illustrations highlights humankind’s sustained interest in nature and perpetual thirst for knowledge. Many of these illustrations are also beautiful works of art, especially when intricate naturalism merges with artistic expression. Even more fascinating are the almost otherworldly levels of detail, as well as the tendency to place realistic creatures in unlikely or bizarre scenarios and to include fantastical creatures within scientific texts. 
 
Facts and Fantasy features book illustrations from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that blend the realistic with the fantastical to showcase human inquisitiveness, investigation, creativity, and imagination. The illustrations manifest this drive to share knowledge about the natural world through artistic expression by employing hand coloring, demonstrating sophisticated design, and using innovative printing processes. 
 
Online
View the virtual edition of Facts and Fantasy: Illustrations of the Natural World.

Private Pages: Sketchbooks and the Artistic Process

December 18, 2024 –April 19, 2025

This exhibition brings together works from both the MFAH art collections and the Hirsch Library special collections to trace the broad range of artistic expression provided by the sketchbook. Private Pages includes original copies of artists’ sketchbooks, special-edition facsimiles that show the smallest torn page and stray mark, and finished books centered around the aesthetics of sketches and preliminary artistic endeavors.

Works of art—especially those experienced in a gallery or museum setting—exist not just on their own, but also in relationship to a viewer or audience. In contrast, the artist’s sketchbook has always been a space not only for honing skills and producing studies for future works, but also an area for working on concepts and ideas without considering an audience at all.

Online
View the virtual edition of Private Pages: Sketchbooks and the Artistic Process.

Child’s Play: Artists as Children’s Book Illustrators

August 21–December 14, 2024

Over the course of the 20th century, artists such as David Hockney, Lois Mailou Jones, and Diego Rivera, best recognized for their work in other media, have frequently employed their skills to illustrate children’s books. Each of the nine publications featured here exhibits a dynamic interaction between the author’s words and the artist’s imagery with a global reach that extends to England, France, Italy, Mexico, the United States, and Uruguay. While the styles vary widely from Cubist to Expressionist to Pointillist and beyond, the unifying element is a sense of playfulness crafted to edify and delight young readers—not to mention adults.

This exhibition, culled from the Hirsch Library’s rare book collection, overlaps with a related installation mounted at the Kitty King Powell Library and Study Center at Bayou Bend, The Good Child’s Library: 19th-Century American Children’s Publications from the Hirsch and Powell Rare Collections, on view through October 19, 2024.

Online
View the virtual edition of Child’s Play: Artists as Children’s Book Illustrators.

Bea Nettles: Myth Maker, Storyteller

March 13–August 17, 2024

For more than 50 years Bea Nettles has mined her memory and vivid imagination to create photographic narratives that are deeply personal, and yet, universal in nature. From the outset her works have taken the form of photobooks that merge image and text, addressing subjects as diverse as mythmaking, autobiography, and relations with the natural world. Works from a feminine perspective ran counter to the largely male-dominated photobook world that began to develop in the 1960s and 1970s. Not one to be deterred by tradition or expectation, Nettles explored the potential for publications that embraced a more intimate and introspective sensibility, forging a trail for others in her wake.

The Hirsch Library recently acquired more than 50 photographically illustrated books directly from the artist, making for one of the most substantial collections of Nettles’s work. Featured here are 14 publications representing the full range of this singular figure in the field of photobook making.

Online
View the virtual edition of Bea Nettles: Myth Maker, Storyteller.

The Gorgeous and the Grotesque: The Illustrations of Edward Gorey

November 1, 2023–March 9, 2024

The work of Edward Gorey has been seen in books across various genres, illustrated on posters for ballets, constructed on stage for Broadway productions, and featured on public television for more than seven decades. The many different styles of Gorey’s book illustrations, for which he is best known, represent his morbid, yet fascinating way of looking at the world. His drawings feature a plethora of subjects: odd figures in ominous landscapes, quirky people in humorous situations, gothic houses filled with skeletons and ghosts, alien machines burning people alive, naughty children torturing animals, and character after character meeting an untimely end.

Yet Gorey (1925–2000) draws in such a way that, no matter how odd or grotesque, every scene is filled with intrigue and wonder. From his early days illustrating the work of other authors, through years of settling into his own style and authorial voice, to his later years experimenting with color as well as format, this exhibition spans his decades-long career and highlights his always-evolving nature as an artist. 

Online
View the virtual edition of The Gorgeous and the Grotesque.

Birdwatching by the Book: Birds in Print in 19th-Century America

July 12–October 28, 2023

Publishing in 19th-century America mirrored the nation’s ambitions as the country sought to fulfill its Manifest Destiny. Volumes depicting uncharted flora and fauna were among the genres that caught the public’s imagination and found a welcome market.

Colorplate books featuring birds yielded some of the most spectacular publications, with the octavo edition of The Birds of America by John James Audubon serving as the high-water mark. Audubon’s publication and similar illustrated books helped to expand awareness of birds to elite buyers of expensive volumes. More-modest publications reached a wide audience: middle-class readers, scientists, political leaders, and even children. 

Birdwatching by the Book features 11 publications culled from the Hirsch Library and Powell Library that reveal American bird illustration at its apex. These books expanded awareness to a nation keen for a better understanding and appreciation of its avian neighbors.

Online
View the virtual edition of Birdwatching by the Book.

See the library catalog listing for the books and periodicals included in the exhibition.

Dan Walsh: Minimalist at Play

January 11–July 8, 2023

Over the past 25 years, New York–based artist Dan Walsh has incorporated book production into his artistic practice, receiving wide acclaim for his virtuosic and playful artist’s books. Walsh (born 1960) works within the minimalist tradition, which is often characterized as cold and austere. However, he brings a warmth to his productions by exposing his process and the variations created by the human hand. Subtle imperfections play out on the pages of his books in the form of irregularities of line, brushstroke, and coloration.

Ultimately, Walsh challenges himself and the viewer to remain present by focusing on minute details while remaining open to the broader possibilities within a highly controlled environment. The nine books on view in Minimalist at Play feature Walsh’s adept skills through a range of media including watercolor, acrylic, ink, and pencil, as well as technical processes such as woodcut printing, cut paper, and bookbinding.

Online
View the virtual edition of Dan Walsh: Minimalist at Play.

See the library catalog listing for the books and periodicals included in the exhibition.