Posts from the Picture Collection

It is almost time for the Library’s fabulous Anti-Prom. On Friday, June 17, New York teens will assemble on the steps of the Schwarzman Building and reveal to each other and the staff volunteers their prom wear.

When Shakespeare wrote “All the World’s a Stage,” he probably wasn’t thinking that his words would someday be performed in an occupied city by an invading army. Nevertheless, during the American Revolution theater seemed to spring up in the oddest of places, often in productions acted by soldiers.

Our March poetry workshop discussed the New York School of poets, their influences, their style, and their writing habits as it captured the spirit of the 1950s and 60s in New York City. Taking some of these habits, we wrote poetry, trying for a slice of life or a walk down a New York street, using drips and splashes of collaged ideas.

There are a number of books in our collections to help you fine tune your fashion drawing style, but have you also seen our digital collections of original hand colored and reproduced fashion illustrations?

The series finale of Mad Men that aired on AMC on May 17 roughly coincided with NYPL's digitization of over one-thousand fashion illustrations produced in the 1950s and '60s by New York City-based firm Creators Studios. See if you can spot the traces of the show's female protagonists in these ready-to-wear design drawings.

Every year, my interns and I have the pleasure of working with the students at the High School for Fashion Industries in conjunction with the Library’s wonderful Anti-Prom projects, managed by our colleagues in Teen services. Past themes have included Goth, Monsters, Super Heroes, and Glam. This year was Punk.

It has been a while since the last blog post. I have been busy with the installation and opening tours related to our final Fall exhibition, The Line Kings’ Library: Al Hirschfeld at The NYPL, which is on view in the Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery here through January 4, 2014. It, the Vandamm exhibit and Michael Peto: Stage in 

During World War II, when the Japanese invaded and occupied Shanghai, Nanjing and other coastal cities of eastern China, they looted, intimidated, and massacred millions of people to prove their imperial strength and mercilessness. Many children and women were raped and killed during the invasion; towns were burned to crisp and lives were forever changed and destroyed.

Five years ago, my parents told me that my grandmother had endured such a horrific event when she was in Fuzhou, the 

Washington Square Park, Manhattan, iPad drawing ©2012 Fotis Flevotomos on Vimeo.

On October 25, 2012, we posted "Drawing on the iPad," a brief introduction to digital drawing for people with or without vision loss. The present video is an example of the playback feature of the Brushes app.

But in reality it's a lot more than that. 

The room of the Art and Architecture Collection, NYPL, iPad drawing © 2012 Fotis FlevotomosAs a visiting artist at the NYPL, I felt the need from the very beginning of my stay in New York City to explore the library visually by making drawings of it on my iPad. The library’s landmark building at 5th Avenue and 42nd Street caught my attention immediately. In the room of the Art and Architecture Collection, the reddish light coming from the reflections of the floor, the wood and the books was one of my 

For the famous or for those aspring to be, for those who have a job to do, an assignment to finish, or for those just doing what they love, the Picture Collection has long been a valuable resource and source of inspiration.

On May 20, 1944 the Picture Collection received a thank-you letter from Louis Slobodkin.

Slobodkin was a sculptor, author, and illustrator and a regular user of the Picture Collection.

In 

Perhaps no person in human history is more controversial than Jesus of Nazareth. The parable above (among many other well known ones) came from Jesus in the New Testament of the Christian

Self-Portrait, 1967.(1)He came from my hometown. As a teenager, he collected photographs of movie stars. A few years later, I clipped fan zines featuring Hayley Mills and the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark 5 and

Journey through Time with the Picture CollectionEnter the doors of the Schwarzman Building from Fifth Avenue this week and you will find yourself, as usual at this time of year, in a jolly space with a giant Christmas tree adorned with all the trimmings of the season. But that's not the only marvel to behold.

A few weeks ago I happened to be wandering through the halls when the holiday decorations were being installed, and the festive spirit of the place, with its red ribbon and wreaths and pine and reflective gold and 

One recent rainy day in the Picture Collection of Mid-Manhattan Library, just shuffling through a fistful of photos, we happened upon this–uh, SIGNED photo of Henry James. Now we are loathe to confess it, but Mr. James is one of those rare writers of whom we have developed a pronounced preference for the Big Screen versions of his works over the textual alternatives. Who could forget Helena Bonham Carter distractedly roaming the dark streets of Venice in