Whether you’re navigating the special exhibition galleries or meandering through permanent collection spaces, you are bound to encounter a book from Thomas J. Watson Library on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. With more than million books in our collection, Watson Library offers a trove of research materials that not only support scholarship but are also occasionally featured in exhibitions.
Dan Lipcan’s 2018 article “A Room of One’s Loan” highlights the first steps that Watson Library took to get our loan program running. It also showcases the beginning of the library collection on The Met website, where you can see all previously exhibited objects from Watson. Our lending practices developed from there. In our largest loan to date, Watson Library lent over sixty objects—including pamphlets, accordion books, posters, and more from the library's special collections—to the 2021 exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders.
We now loan material, on average, to eight exhibitions per year, a number that continues to rise. This includes both internal loans to exhibitions at The Met and external loans to other institutions in the New York City area and beyond. The number of loans does not include Watson’s own exhibitions nor our long-term loans to Museum departments, such as this beautiful silver book cover shown in the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts’s Gallery 533.
Since 2024, Watson Library has lent objects that cover a variety of subjects and time periods. Part of the lending preparations includes pre-exhibition treatments, which are common for books going on display and are usually performed to stabilize the book before it is opened and on view for months at a time. In July 2024, six books were displayed in Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co. next to the dazzling silvers and enamels of Moore’s work. One of the books, [Japanese Textiles] (1920s), underwent extensive conservation treatment before the original opening date to ensure it was safe to exhibit.
La Basilica di San Marco in Venezia Illustrata Nella Storia e Nell'arte da Scrittori Veneziani (volume 3) on display in Collecting Inspiration: Edward C. Moore at Tiffany & Co. Photo by Eileen Travell
In August 2024, three books from Watson were installed in the yearlong exhibition The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection. These books were requested by curatorial staff to show teahouses depicted in woodblock prints and photography. One of the books, Chokunyū Juen Zuroku, depicts notable literati painter Tanomura Chokunyu’s sencha gathering, rendered by his son, Shosai.
Sōken'an Kinen Meien Zuroku, Sencha Hayashinan, and Chokunyū Juen Zuroku on display in The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection. Photo by Paul Lachenauer
In the fall, three books were installed in the Department of Drawings and Prints’s exhibition Paris Through The Eyes of Saint-Aubin. These books offered evidence of Saint-Aubin’s curiosity into everyday Parisian life through his sketches.
L’art du Brodeur (on the right) on display in Paris Through the Eyes of Saint-Aubin. Photo by Hyla Skopitz for The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph opened soon after with four books—printed over two hundred years after those in the Saint-Aubin exhibition—featuring the work of American architect Paul Rudolph.
Paul Rudolph: Young Mover, Changing the Look of American Architecture (on the left) on display in Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph. Photo by Eileen Travell
In summer 2025, four catalogs featuring the artwork of George Morrison were installed in the American Wing exhibition The Magical City: George Morrison’s New York, and will be on display until May 2026. Watson Library also has objects on display in Fanmania: A 19th-Century Obsession and The Infinite Artistry of Japanese Ceramics, both of which open at The Met in December 2025.
Outside The Met’s walls, Watson Library lent items to several institutions in the New York City area: Five book-shaped objects from the Lynn and Bruce Heckman Gift were displayed at the Center for Book Art’s exhibition The Best Kept Secret: 200 Years of Blooks (curated by Watson Library’s own Mindell Dubansky!), and a copy of Exposicao Pequeno Tamanho: Caio Mouraou, Didi was featured in El Museo del Barrio’s Mestre Didi: Spiritual Form. Currently, there are Watson objects on display in Artes Visuales, The Latin American Avant-Garde in Print at the Leubsdorf Gallery through December 13, 2025.
History of the Old Elm, Vol. XIII.; G. W. M and Relic of the Eurydice. Lost March 24, 1878 (both bottom left) on display in The Best Kept Secret: 200 Years of Blooks at the Center for Book Arts. Photo by Mindell Dubansky
The variety of exhibitions that feature books from Watson Library speaks to the diversity of the collection itself. Many Museum visitors wander through the glass doors of the library with a shocked look on their face, not realizing the Museum had a library, let alone that our books are out in the galleries or across New York City. The next time you wander through an exhibit, take a peek at the label to see if it’s from Watson Library.
