Morgan Library and Museum to Host Spring Centennial Celebration in May
As gardens across New York City are blooming with the start of spring, the Morgan Library and Museum’s Garden will once again be open for the season, allowing visitors to explore its beautiful grounds for the third year post-restoration – which also happens to be the museum’s 100th birthday!
In honor of this milestone event, the museum is hosting a special celebration for all ages featuring live music, exhibition tours, artmaking, scavenger hunts, and more! The Spring Centennial Celebration will take place on Sunday, May 5, from 11am to 3pm, where families can experience the historic library and garden while enjoying crafts, live music and readings themed to current exhibitions.
From Italian architecture to French theater to contemporary drawings, springtime at the Morgan is fun for all ages! Museum admission and all activities are free all day for the celebration.
After a full day of activities, end the celebration with a family concert from 2 to 3 pm! Join Michael Hearst and his band for an exciting performance geared to curious families, extraordinary children, and their unusual friends. The show draws from Hearst’s books, albums, and PBS series. On this musical and visual adventure, discover some of the most bizarre animals that roam the planet, impressive and daring characters, vehicles you never knew existed, fascinating buildings, and odd-ball instruments such as the Theremin, claviola, and stylophone.
Other activities include:
Poetry Wall: Enter the Multi “verse”. Write your own unique verses on the Morgan’s Poetry Wall inspired by poetry in the Morgan’s collection.
Morgan Scavenger Hunt. Seek out highlights of the Morgan’s campus inspired by the new picture book Morgan by Deana Sobel Lederman.
Centennial Celebration Time Capsule. What is your favorite thing to do or see at the Morgan? What can we create together over the next 100 years? Share your message with the visitors and staff of 2124 by contributing to our time capsule.
Gilded Glamor. Get into character, literally, as J. Pierpont Morgan or the museum’s first director, Belle da Costa Greene, with our head-in-a-hole photo opportunity.
Quiet Space. Take a quiet break in one of the Morgan’s historic rooms with sensory friendly supports such as fidgets, noise canceling headphones, and books.
Family Guides. Explore the Morgan at your own pace with Family Guides for the Morgan Garden and the exhibition Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature.
Up Close & Personal. Art meets science in this observational drawing activity. Look closely at feathers, flowers, rocks and more and sketch the intricacies that you observe in nature.
A museum and independent research library located in the heart of New York City, the Morgan Library & Museum began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan (commonly known as J.P. Morgan). As early as 1890 Morgan started to assemble a collection of illuminated, literary, and historical manuscripts, early printed books and old master drawings and prints. In 1924 the collection and its many treasures were made available to the public.
Today, the museum welcomes thousands of visitors – including many families and children – to its exhibitions, musical performances, lectures, readings, films, family programs, and tours. The first Saturday of each month, parents of young children are invited to the Morgan for a special library tour and story time. Families can also download free activity guides to make children’s visits more interactive, informative and fun.
“To visit the Morgan is to encounter a remarkable range of works that attest to the highest achievement of human creativity—from drawing and literature to music, photography, rare books, and the arts of the ancient and medieval worlds,” says Museum Director Colin B. Bailey. “The collections, some of the greatest of their kind, include superb examples by such masters as Gutenberg, Michelangelo, Mozart, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Pablo Picasso, Irving Penn, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Simply put, there is no other museum like the Morgan in New York.”
Admission to Morgan Library & Museum is free for children 12 and under. Student and senior discounts are also available. The museum is located at 225 Madison Avenue and is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from 10:30am to 5pm, and Friday from 10:30am to 7pm. Learn more at themorgan.org.
