Meet Allison Pappas, our Jane P. Watkins Assistant Curator of Photography! She joined us earlier this year and is working on our upcoming exhibition on the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron. The exhibition centers on Cameron’s path-breaking career and her intimate style which suits Allison as a historian of photography with expertise in the medium's early history. Allison will be giving a lecture on May 30 on the images and themes in “Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron.” Register at this link: https://www.themorgan.org/programs/lecture-julia-margaret-cameron-arresting-beauty Allison has a broad knowledge of American and European photography up to the present day. Her research examines the disparate ways that photographs have circulated in use and interpretation across the histories of art, science and technology, and ideas, with a particular focus on the dialogue between the conceptual and material foundations of the medium. She also has a strong interest in the historiography of photography and is co-authoring the book “Framing the Field: Photography's Histories in American Institutions,” which explores the institutional establishment of the field of photography from the 1970s through 1990s through long-form interviews and archival research. Previously, Pappas was Assistant Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Pappas holds an MA in History of Art from Williams College and a PhD in History of Art and Architecture from Brown University. __ 1. Allison Pappas in the the Rotunda 2. Julia Margaret Cameron, Call, I Follow, I Follow, Let Me Die!, 1867, carbon print ©The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund. Museum no. RPS.735-2017. 3. Julia Margaret Cameron, The Astronomer John Frederick William Herschel, 1867, albumen print © The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the V&A, acquired with the generous assistance of the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Art Fund. Museum no. RPS.1234-2017 4. Allison installing "Arresting Beauty: Julia Margaret Cameron" #MorganLibrary #ArrestingBeauty #MuseumJobs (fb)

Last Chance! “The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World” closes this Sunday, May 25. From the tales of famous travelers like Marco Polo and Alexander the Great to the ancient encyclopedias of Pliny and Isidore, medieval conceptions of the world were often based more on authoritative tradition than direct observation. This exhibition presents one of the most fascinating examples of a medieval guide to the globe, known as the Book of the Marvels of the World. Written in France by an unknown author, this fifteenth-century illustrated text vividly depicts the remarkable inhabitants, customs, and natural phenomena of various regions, both near and far. Reuniting two of the four surviving copies, “The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World” brings to life medieval conceptions—and misconceptions—of a global world. Additional objects in the exhibition demonstrate how foreign cultures were imagined in the Middle Ages, and what the assumptions of medieval Europeans tell us about their own implicit biases and beliefs. Highlights include rare illustrated manuscripts of Marco Polo and John Mandeville; a richly ornamented Ottoman Book of Wonders, made for a sultan’s daughter; and a spectacular medieval map of the Holy Land, based on pilgrimage accounts. __ This exhibition is organized by Joshua O'Driscoll, Associate Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts. "The Book of Marvels: Imagining the Medieval World" is made possible with support from the New York Medieval Society, an anonymous donor, the Lucy Ricciardi Family Exhibition Fund, Martha J. Fleischman, the David L. Klein Jr. Foundation, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. __ Image: Master of the Geneva Boccaccio, Traponee (Sri Lanka), France, Probably Angers, ca. 1460-65, in the Book of the Marvels of the World, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 124, fol. 32r (detail). #MorganLibrary #BookofMarvels (fb)