Due to the depth and breadth of the Lilly Library’s holdings, we are frequently invited to collaborate and participate in exhibitions created by other libraries and cultural heritage repositories. Wherever your travels may take you, there may be an exhibition nearby featuring familiar and unfamiliar items from the Lilly Library’s collections. Currently, Lilly Library materials are on exhibit in Pennsylvania and Colorado; more will soon be on display in Washington State and Wisconsin.
The National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, Pennsylvania, http://www.nawcc.org/index.php/museumlibrary, exhibition Bond Watches, James Bond Watches is available for viewing from June 2010 – April 2011. Highlights include original manuscripts and printed first editions from the Lilly Library’s extensive Ian Fleming related collections. As noted on the exhibition Website, “James Bond watches are invariably at the center of Ian Fleming’s original literary thrillers, … consistently pitting the hero against the most unrelenting adversary of all: the clock, with the fate of the world hanging on mere seconds left before mission success.” For more information visit: http://www.nawcc.org/index.php/museum-exhibits/special-exhibits/bond-watches-james-bond-watches
On exhibit at the University of Colorado at Boulder is “The Art of Willis Pyle,” whose early illustrations — including his characters that lived on the big screen — are featured in a new display at the CU Heritage Center. “CU was the launching pad for Pyle, 96, who has drawn popular Disney characters such as Pinocchio, Bambi and dwarfs from the fairy tale ‘Snow White.’ Before the creation of Pinocchio, Mr. Magoo and Raggedy Ann, illustrator Willis Pyle was art editor of a monthly humor magazine called the ‘Colorado Dodo’ at the University of Colorado.”
The exhibition showcases original sketches and drawings by Mr. Pyle of these Disney characters from the Lilly Library’s Willis Pyle Manuscript Collection. For more information visit: http://www.coloradodaily.com/cu-boulder/ci_16199186#ixzz12kUUrJ24
A major exhibition and overview of the work of Timothy C. Ely of Washington state will be opening at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane on December 4, 2010 – April 16, 2011. “Mr. Ely’s exquisitely bound books integrate Western and Eastern religious and mystical traditions, astronomy, particle physics, cartography, alchemy and sacred geometry.” Considered “one of our regions most important but little-known (in any depth) artists, Mr. Ely is a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow (for study and teaching in Europe and Japan), and was awarded a prestigious Pollock–Krasner Foundation Award.” The Lilly Library is very pleased to hold many of Mr. Ely’s works. Additional information can be found here: http://www.northwestmuseum.org/index.cfm/Exhibits_Collections_Exhibits.htm
Closing out the year at the Chazen Museum, in Madison Wisconsin is their exhibition Hidden Treasures: Illuminated Manuscripts from Midwestern Collections. As the title suggests, there are many items of great rarity and beauty held in Midwestern collections and this exhibition will provide visitors with an opportunity to view a selection of the rarest. More information will be coming soon at: http://www.chazen.wisc.edu/home.htm