This is my first visit to the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City, and honestly my initial thought was “why is the entrance fee so high?”. It wasn’t until I began to venture around the museum that I realized how culturally valuable every artifact was. The Morgan Library and Museum is located on Madison Avenue, just a short walk from Grand Central and Penn Station. Composed by a complex of buildings, the Morgan Museum actually originated as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Mr. Morgan’s library was built between 1902 and 1906, adjacent to his home in New York. The library consisted of three rooms representing America’s Age of Elegance in an Italian Renaissance styled palazzo. Eleven years after Pierpont’s death, in 1924, his son J.P. Morgan Jr. gifted his father’s dream library into a public institution. In 1928, the Annex building was erected, replacing Pierpont Morgan’s residence. Then later in 1988, J.P. Morgan Jr’s (aka Jack) former residence was also added to the complex. The largest expansion in the Morgan history was completed in 2006 by architect Renzo Piano. Piano added 75,000 square feet to the campus, increasing the exhibition space by more than fifty percent and implemented various visitor amenities, including a new performance hall, a new café and a new restaurant, a shop, a new reading room and collections storage. J.P. Morgan Jr.’s generosity constituted as one of the most momentous cultural gifts in U.S. history.
J.P. Morgan’s Library portrayed his admiration and respect he held for his religion and the arts. The sixteenth-century tapestry over the mantelpiece depicts avarice, one of the seven deadly sins, personified by the mythological King Midas. The ceiling is covered in signs of the zodiac; the arrangement of the signs in his library’s ceiling carry a hidden meaning related to key events in his personal life. There are also portraits from Socrates and Michelangelo, identifying the library as a place for the preservation of art and ideas. In the East room of Morgan’s library, you will find a plethora of medieval illuminated manuscripts, rare printed books, and handwritten manuscripts of composers from the Renaissance to the present day. One item that stood out to me most was Morgan’s copy of a Bible printed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1455. Gutenberg’s Bible took away the tedious process of copying books by hand and paved the way for an innovated new technology to exchange art and ideas in all spheres of human endeavor.
Renzo Piano’s renovation in 2006 has definitely enhanced my impression of J.P. Morgan and the Morgan Library and Museum. In Morgan’s early years, he strived off international affairs, funneling capital from Europe to America’s emerging economy. As a banker, he stopped a major public panic in 1907 by rallying bankers to supply liquidity to shore up the endangered economy. This led to the establishment of a National Monetary Commission and eventually to the founding of the Federal Reserve. As a collector, he amassed in a full range of artistic and human achievement in Western civilization. Morgan’s exquisite library portrays his appreciation for human achievement in the arts. He is a believer in the value of expressive thinking. From his collection of art, to his ability to think outside the box as a banker, Morgan was a supporter a visionary man. Piano’s renovation to the Morgan Library and Museum just further enhanced the museum, making it more enjoyable to the public perfectly representing J.P. Morgan; an innovational and skillful man.
