Free exhibition opens October 14, presented by Iron Mountain
Incorporated
BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
2016 marks the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s
death, and Boston Public Library honors the Bard’s lasting legacy with
its Shakespeare Unauthorized exhibition, opening on Friday,
October 14 in the McKim Exhibition Hall on the first floor of the McKim
building at the Central Library in Copley Square. The exhibition is
presented in conjunction with the BPL citywide initiative All
the City’s a Stage: A Season of Shakespeare at the Boston Public Library,
connecting audiences to theater and the dramatic arts with programs
throughout the library system. Boston Public Library holds one of the
largest and most comprehensive collections of Shakespeare in a public
institution, including the first four folios of his collected works, 45
early quarto editions of individual plays, and thousands of volumes of
early source material, commentaries, translations, manuscripts, and
more. Visit www.bpl.org/shakespeare
to view the complete offerings of the initiative.
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William Shakespeare's First Folio, 1623. Boston Public Library, Rare Books Department. (Photo: Boston Public Library)
“At some point in life, everyone has experienced the work of
Shakespeare," said Mayor Martin J. Walsh. "These opportunities at the
Boston Public Library give all the chance to learn more about the
creative genius of Shakespeare and how his legacy lives on today."
“Shakespeare Unauthorized is sure to engage and inspire people of
all ages, and we hope visitors leave with a better understanding of not
only Shakespeare’s works, but an appreciation for the world-class
Shakespeare holdings of one of Boston’s finest cultural institutions,”
said Julie Burros, Chief of Arts & Culture for the City of Boston. “We
applaud the Boston Public Library for ensuring these works are
accessible to everyone.”
Shakespeare Unauthorized: Experience the original works of “The
Bard”
Shakespeare
Unauthorized, a major gallery exhibition on view from October
14, 2016 through March 31, 2017, includes extraordinarily rare first and
early editions of familiar and beloved plays like A
Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet,
and The
Merchant of Venice, as well as all four Shakespearean folios,
most notably the BPL’s own copy of the world-famous First
Folio. Through the pages of these precious books, visitors can
experience Shakespeare in his original language and spelling, just as he
would have been read by book lovers and theater-goers hundreds of years
ago.
Shakespeare Unauthorized is made possible through the financial
support of Iron
Mountain Incorporated (NYSE: IRM), the global leader in storage and
information management services. Based in Boston, Iron Mountain provides
charitable grants of funding and in-kind services to cultural and
historical preservation projects like Shakespeare Unauthorized through
its Living
Legacy Initiative.
“We’re proud to help bring this exhibition to life in our home city of
Boston,” said Ty Ondatje, senior vice president, Corporate
Responsibility and Chief Diversity Officer at Iron Mountain. “Our
philanthropic mission is to preserve and create access to our world’s
cultural and historical treasures, those ideas and artifacts that make
up the human experience, so that they can be shared and enjoyed by
everyone. The works and legacy of Shakespeare are the very definition of
iconic and timeless treasures, and we’re honored to help present the
Library’s impressive collection to the world.”
Shakespeare Unauthorized contains far more than just books of
plays: this exhibition features surprising rarities and mysterious
objects; scandalous forgeries made by con men and accomplished scholars;
books from the luxurious private libraries of early English aristocrats;
and memorabilia from four centuries of acting and stagecraft.
“We are indebted to Iron Mountain for their leadership grant to the
Boston Public Library Foundation, and for partnering with the BPL in
displaying its extensive collection of Shakespeare materials,” said
Boston Public Library President David Leonard. “This exhibition of rare
and invaluable items promises to provide an inspiring adventure for all
who visit. We are also very grateful for the critical funding provided
by The Boston Foundation, and the Associates of the Boston Public
Library, for curatorial and conservation work that supported this
project.”
C&G
Partners created the engaging exhibition design that showcases the
extraordinary historic material on display in Shakespeare Unauthorized.
“Many know the name Shakespeare, but might not know how to experience
something like a rare book, however precious it may be,” said Jonathan
Alger, Co-founder of C&G Partners. “So it was very important to us to
help that process along for modern visitors. We designed a space that is
itself theatrical, intriguing and deliberately ambiguous, veiling what’s
to come as any good playwright would.”
Shakespeare’s
Here and Everywhere
The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
at the Boston Public Library, an independent, non-profit institution,
features a complementary exhibition, Shakespeare’s
Here and Everywhere, which opened on September 3 and runs
through February 2017, with associated programming offered. William
Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories take place in a number
of fascinating and often picturesque locations throughout Europe, Asia
and Africa, in eras from classical times to the Renaissance. In this
exhibition of forty maps, images and three-dimensional objects, visitors
view these locales by seeing items from Shakespeare’s lifetime, learning
about the world in the time of Shakespeare, and understanding the
symbolic role that geography held to the dramas.
Kronborg Castle in Denmark, known as Elsinore in Hamlet, is
highlighted in the exhibition. A 1629 Dutch map depicting
the Danish Kingdom, along with a vignette illustrating “Elsenor,” is on
display. Complementing this map is an original print of “Cronenburg”
from Samuel von Pufendorf’s 1696 historical
atlas. Geographically-significant quotes from the dramas set the stage
for the visitors, such as Marcellus’ line from Hamlet, “Something
is rotten in the state of Denmark” (Act 1, scene 4). Visitors also see
Heinrich Bünting’s famous “Clover leaf map” from 1581 and Abraham
Ortelius’ 1570 edition of Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.
“This is an opportunity for visitors to appreciate Shakespeare in a
whole new way, through viewing the cartographic treasures from the
collections of the Boston Public Library and our founder Norman B.
Leventhal,” said Connie Chin, President of the Norman B. Leventhal Map
Center.
About BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
Boston Public Library has a
Central Library, twenty-four branches, map center, business library, and
a website filled with digital content and services. Established in 1848,
the Boston Public Library has pioneered public library service in
America. It was the first large free municipal library in the United
States, the first public library to lend books, the first to have a
branch library, and the first to have a children’s room. Each year, the
Boston Public Library hosts thousands of programs and serves millions of
people. All of its programs and exhibitions are free and open to the
public. At the Boston Public Library, books are just the beginning. To
learn more, visit bpl.org.
About IRON MOUNTAIN
Iron Mountain Incorporated® (NYSE: IRM)
is the global leader for storage and information management services.
Trusted by more than 220,000 organizations around the world, Iron
Mountain’s real estate network comprises more than 85 million square
feet across more than 1,400 facilities in 45 countries dedicated to
protecting and preserving what matters most for its customers. Iron
Mountain’s solutions portfolio includes records
management, data
management, document
management, data
centers, art
storage and logistics, and secure
shredding, helping organizations to lower storage costs, comply with
regulations, recover from disaster, and better use their information.
Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain stores and protects billions of
information assets, including critical business documents, electronic
information, medical data and cultural and historical artifacts. Visit
www.ironmountain.com
for more information.
About the NORMAN B. LEVENTHAL MAP CENTER
The Norman B.
Leventhal Map Center is ranked among the top map centers in the United
States for the size of its collection, the significance of its historic
(pre-1900) material, and its advanced digitization program. It is unique
among the major collections because it also combines these features with
exceptional educational and teacher training programs to advance
geographic literacy among students in grades K-12 and enhance the
teaching of subjects from history to mathematics to language arts. The
collection is also the second largest in the country located in a public
library, ensuring unlimited access to these invaluable resources for
scholars, educators, and the general public. The Leventhal Map Center,
created in 2004, is a nonprofit organization established as a
public-private partnership between the Boston Public Library and
philanthropist Norman Leventhal. Its mission is to use the Boston Public
Library’s permanent collection of 200,000 maps and 5,000 atlases and a
select group of rare maps collected by Mr. Leventhal for the enjoyment
and education of all through exhibitions, educational programs, and a
website that includes thousands of digitized maps at maps.bpl.org. The
map collection is global in scope, dating from the 15th century to the
present, with particular strengths in maps and atlases of the American
Revolution, New England, Boston, Massachusetts, world urban centers, and
nautical charts.
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Source: Iron Mountain