BIB_ID
408372
Accession number
MA 9178
Creator
Morell, Abelardo, photographer.
Published
2017
Credit line
Gift of the artist in honor of the security guards of the Morgan Library & Museum; courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery, 2017.
Description
1 photographic print
Notes
Morell created this work in collaboration with the Morgan to mark Thoreau's bicentenary. In 1979, at the start of his artistic career, Morell worked at the Morgan as a night guard and he donated this print in honor of the Morgan's security guards.
image: 36 x 43 inches (40 x 47 inches including 4-inch borders); frame: 44 x 51 inches
Summary
The photographic grid, which reads from left to right and top to bottom, depicts the covers of the blank books in which Henry David Thoreau kept his journal over the course of twenty-four years. All the journals depicted are from the Morgan's collection (MA 1302.1-39) except the ninth one, which is from the collection of the New York Public Library, Berg Collection. Morell photographed the rear boards of the journals because the front boards have labels adhered by Harrison Gray Otis Blake, Thoreau's friend and later literary executor. The journal notebooks themselves vary a bit in size, but Morell has scaled all the images to the same dimensions.
Medium
Archival inkjet print
Catalog link
Classification
Department