Special Collections researcher Sue Rainey used numerous materials from our collections when working on her recent book, Creating a World on Paper: Harry Fenn's Career in Art. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Harry Fenn (1837-1911) played a key role in popularizing periodical and book illustration. The exhibition investigates his contributions to three highly successful serial publications of New York’s D.

Although celebrated today as one of England’s foremost artists and poets, William Blake (1757–1827) worked and died in obscurity. Drawing from Special Collections’ Sandra Elizabeth Olivier and Raymond Danowski Reference Collection of William Blake, presented by the Danowskis to UVA in 2010, this exhibition traces Blake’s artistic achievement as well as the fascinating process by which later generations rediscovered Blake.

This mini-exhibition is drawn from Mildred Abraham’s personal collection of rare books on the Grand Tour. It offers viewers a chance to travel back in time to experience the Italy famous for its classical origins, Carnival, and banditti. Ranging from the earliest account of the Grand Tour in Italy, published in the 17th century, to illustrated accounts of 19th-century tourists and intellectuals such as Henry James, the exhibition is a visual feast for anyone interested in Italy and its history.

This exhibition surveys one of the greatest archives of American literature: the University of Virginia's William Faulkner collections. Manuscripts of eight novels are displayed alongside first editions and key archival documents. The novelist's life is narrated through the personae he inhabited: artist, aviator, screenwriter, Nobel prizewinner, white southerner, and UVA writer-in-residence are just some of those featured. Die-hard fans, the general public, and even the Faulkner-phobic will find the unexpected in the items on display.

On March 19, 1917, James Rogers McConnell became the first UVA student to die in World War I. He is remembered most as one of the Lafayette Escadrille, a corps of American pilots fighting for the French before the U.S. joined the war. This exhibition surveys his extraordinary adventure, beginning with his decision to join the American Ambulance Corps in 1915, through flight training, combat, and injury, and finally to his death in aerial combat and subsequent memorialization at UVA and beyond.

“Miniature Books and Money” was launched as a partner project to an exhibition at the Virginia Arts of the Book Center, "Monumental Ideas in Miniature Books 2." Drawing almost entirely from the McGehee Miniature Book Collection, the exhibition featured almost 100 miniature books, showcasing some of the ways that one topic–money–can be approached through this 12,000 item collection.

"experimental beds" is a set of six color etchings by Judy Watson, an Indigenous Australian artist who visited the University of Virginia in October 2011 as an artist-in-residence at the Kluge-Ruhe Collection. Inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s architectural drawings of UVA, Watson developed her ideas in collaboration with Professor Dean Dass and advanced printmaking students. The resulting prints use Jefferson’s drawings layered with images from Watson's visit to Monticello and her experience at UVA.

Using manuscripts, rare books, and artifacts, this exhibit traces the rhythms and pitches that reverberate through the collections at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library. "Sound in Early America" is a collaboration between The Jefferson Trust, the McIntire Department of Music, UVA Music Library, and the Small Special Collections Library in conjunction with the Soundscapes of Jefferson's America Symposium.

"Lewis and Clark" features the maps that Thomas Jefferson had owned and studied as he planned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark’s journey to the Pacific and back. This exhibition reflects a re-envisioning of the Library’s 1995 exhibition and catalogue Exploring the West from Monticello: A Perspective in Maps from Columbus to Lewis and Clark.