Cartography - Archive of Exhibitions Which Closed in 2001


Please see Cartography - Calendar of Exhibitions for a current calendar of exhibitions.
Click here for archive of past exhibitions.


April 4, 2000 - January 11, 2001 - Portland, Maine
The Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine, presents Charting Neptune's Realm: From Classical Mythology to Satellite Imagery. It traces the special iconography mariners have developed over the centuries to depict the fleeting, ephemeral conditions of the oceans represented by changes in winds, currents, depths, sea surface temperatures, and other transitory features. Our public events during this year will continue the nautical focus of this exhibition.



November 2, 2000 - January 19, 2001 - Amsterdam
Strijd om de ruimte in kaart [Mapping the Struggle for Space] is an exhibition in the Exhibition room of the University Library of Amsterdam (Singel 425, reachable by trams 1, 2 and 5) (Monday-Friday 11.00-17.00 h; 25 December 2000 till and including 1 Januariy2001 closed). The exhibition is organised in co-operation with the Department for Geography and Planning of the University of Amsterdam in the framework of the conference "Geografie 2000". This conference (2-3 November 2000) is held under the aegis of the Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap (Royal Dutch Geographical Society) and centers on the theme "struggle for space".



February 11, 2000 - March 2001 - Montreal
Yes! The World is Round: A closer look at early globes, maps and scientific instruments -Three centuries of exploration, discoveries and scientific interpretations of the earth and the heavens will be seen at the Stewart Museum situated at the Fort on Île Sainte-Hélène in Montreal. More than 35 early terrestrial and celestial globes, accompanied by early maps, rare books, scientific instruments and armillary spheres, veritable objects of decorative art selected from the Museum's extensive collections, will provide global visions of our universe as it was represented by scientists living from the period of the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. The arrival of the new millennium will celebrate the greatness and amplitude of all of mankind's achievements. In all epochs, humanity has sought to understand the physical universe. The exhibition, Yes! The World is Round will present visions of the earth and the heavens as represented by Europeans throughout history, in an original portrait of modern science.

Included will be globes originally from Amsterdam and made by such famous individuals as Hondius, Blaeu and the Valks, demonstrating the emergence of artistic and scientific activity of considerable importance in the seventeenth century. From Italy, the exhibition includes globes by Greuter and Cassini, along with one large (108 cm), prestigious example by Vincenzo Coronelli, a Venetian cosmographer who, after the Flemish globe-makers, had the greatest success in Europe. Globes from Germany (Reinhold, Eimmart, Güssefeld), Sweden (Åkerman and Akrel), and England (Price, Hill, Cary, Newton, Wyld, etc.) complete the range of examples from the Enlightenment into the early nineteenth century. France represents the cradle of modern geography. Globes by Delisle, Robert de Vaugondy and Delamarche represent the transformation from luxury objects to objects for a broader consumption. Globes, from pocket-size to more than a meter in diameter, usually produced in pairs, celestial and terrestrial, graced tables, bookshelves and libraries. Science, studied in these works as pure science as well as decorative art, shows an elegant side that is often ignored. The globes and spheres shown in this exhibition reveal a universe at the highest level of human achievements and aspirations.

The guest curator for this exhibition is Ed Dahl. Photographic material and an exhibition catalogue will soon be available. Information : Sylvia Deschênes, phone: (514) 861-6703, ext. 225.



September 15, 2000 - March 1, 2001 - Cambridge, Massachusetts
A House Divided: Maps from The Civil War
For more than half of this century the maps had been filed away, almost forgotten, the testimony of a not too distant past, the American Civil Era. Now the Harvard Map Collection of Harvard College Library is giving the public a glimpse of the reality of that time, by putting together an exhibition of these rare and detailed maps entitled A House Divided: Maps from the Civil War. The importance of accurate and detailed maps during wartime cannot be overstated. Not only did commanders need to know where the roads were and where they went, but they needed to know if the road could handle the immense crowd of men and beasts, wagons and cannons that was the army. Was a ford passable by mule trains as well as men? How steep was the grade leading to the mountain pass? Was there sufficient forage for the horses? The topographical engineer, sometimes called a "topog," was expected to provide this information to his commander, with sometimes disastrous results if the map was wrong.

The central focus of the exhibition will be 35 Civil War period maps from the Harvard Map Collection, including maps presented to the Harvard College Library by the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS). The MOLLUS maps, which have been at Harvard for over 70 years, were re-discovered recently by Bonnie Burns, Geographic Information Systems Specialist for Harvard College Library. Burns has some background in Civil War era maps and immediately realized what treasures were hiding in the collection. "The maps taken as a whole tell the stories, not just of who won which battle, or the strategies of the generals, but of the topogs themselves."

The Civil War map collection includes approximately 1,000 maps, in both manuscript and printed form, including an unusual oval map of the Gettysburg battlefield published in 1863. The map, which shows the positions of the troops as well as roads, buildings and topography, is eye-catching because of its shape. It is surprising, even today, to see a map drawn in something other than a rectangle. And the publication date is revealing. It took less than six months to get a map of Gettysburg into commercial production.

Some of the maps in the collection are amazingly detailed and about half are in fair condition, as David Cobb, Curator of the Harvard Map Collection explains, with only a few minor tears or creases. Others have sustained significant damage over the years and are in need of preservation. The difficult part," says Burns, "was to pick only 35 out of these."

A House Divided features many fine examples of the cartographer's art. A manuscript map of the Topsail Sound area in North Carolina is particularly striking, from the beautifully detailed calligraphy of the title to the tiny flag, about ¼ inch high adorning the tent that marks division headquarters. This particular map was drawn in the field by B.L. Blackford of the Confederate Topographical Engineers Office. It was captured from Confederate Headquarters after General Joe Johnston surrendered to General W.T. Sherman in 1865.

Many of the maps that are part of the MOLLUS collection were the property of Charles Loring, a Harvard graduate and, for most of the war, an aide to Union General Ambrose Burnside. Looking through the maps is like reading a history of the Union IX Corps, of which Burnside was the longtime commander. Manuscript maps used during his time in command are included in the exhibit. Some very significant moments for the Union army are displayed in these maps, such as the battle of Cold Harbor.

Other pieces in the exhibition include an atlas from 1867, containing maps of many major battlefields south of Gettysburg, an 1892 edition of the Atlas of the Official Records, which contains maps of just about every battle that occurred during the war, and period surveying tools loaned by the Harvard Collection of Historic Scientific Instruments.

The exhibit runs September 15, 2000 through March 1, 2001 in the Corridor Gallery of Pusey Library, Harvard Yard. Sample images from the exhibit will also be available for viewing on the Harvard Map Collection webpage.



March 10 - March 16, 2001 - London
The Józef Pilsudski Institute, 238-246 King Street, London W6 0RF (3 minutes from Ravenscourt Park underground station) announces an exhibition of historical maps donated to the Institute by Tadeusz Pawlowicz. It will be open from for a week 14.00-18.00 each day (i.e. including Sunday). The exhibition comprises 52 printed maps of the 16th -18th centuries. After 16th March, although the maps will no longer be on display, they can be consulted at the Institute any Tuesday or Thursday between 11.00 and 14.00. If you need further information ring: [0]20 8748 6197.



March 9, 2001 - May 19, 2001 - New York
The New York Public Library, Gottesman Exhibition Gallery, 5th Avenue and 42nd Street, presents Heading West: Mapping the Territory. Some 170 maps in this exhibit illustrate the mapmakers' growing awareness of the West as a region. From imaginary watery passages across the continent, to explorers' maps, to wagon, stage and railroad mapping, on to maps of settlement and finally gold mining mania-- all of these cartographic images of the West will be on display. Accompanying the map exhibit, in the Edna Barnes Salomon Room on the third floor, will be an exhibit Touring West -- a lively presentation of memorabilia from the various theatrical, musical and entertainment groups that were among the first folk to travel in an organized fashion out to the frontier. Curated by Barbara Cohen-Stratyner of the Shelby Cullom Davis Museum, Performing Arts Library, The New York Public Library, this exhibit will be up April 6-July 7, 2001.



March 3, 2001 - June 3, 2001 - Saratoga Springs, New York
The World According to the Newest and Most Exact Observations: Mapping Art and Science at The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College, Malloy Wing, 815 North Broadway. Whether it is part of a work of art or a conventional depiction of geographical spaces, mapping is a creative act. The underlying premise for this exhibition is that maps, and the history of mapping, reveal a history of human understandings of reality--a reality that can be made accessible to us only through the interpretive medium of a spatially scaled and bounded model. Maps come in all forms and extend from the vision of our physical being in its smallest form (genetic mapping of our DNA) to the unimaginably huge (the cosmos). The history of mapping is not just the story of how humans have found their way through the physical space of land masses, rivers, roads, towns, cities, neighborhoods, and the next frontier; it also reveals the metaphorical ways in which we have found our way through problems and information. The World According to the Newest and Most Exact Observations: Mapping Art and Science will be an interdisciplinary exhibition that traces numerous ideas about mapping. As two spheres of representation are explored--the human body and northeastern North America--the overall exhibition will display the technological advances that have had an impact on our ability to comprehend and represent these spheres on an ever finer and more flexible scale. This exhibition is organized by Susan Bender, associate dean of faculty and associate professor of anthropology, and Ian Berry, curator of the Tang, in collaboration with Bernard Possidente, professor of biology, and Richard Wilkinson, professor of anthropology of the University of Albany, State University of New York.



March 3, 2001 - July 15, 2001 - Daytona Beach, Florida
When Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492, he found the gold ornaments and heard tales of great quantities of gold to the south. Dreams of wealth and opportunity would fuel exploration and immigration for the next five hundred years. Myths and Dreams: Exploring the Cultural Legacies of Florida and the Caribbean illustrates Florida's history of contact and change through artifacts, maps, and documents. Among the cartographic highlights of the traveling exhibition is Arnoldus Montanus' 1671 book on geography, "Die Nieuwe en Onbenkended Weerld of Beschryving van America en't Zuid-Land." Also featured is Sebastian Munster's woodcut of the New World from the "Novae Insulae, XVII Nova Tabula" of 1540 and M. Bellin's 1754 map of Haiti as it appeared in 1492. Myths and Dreams will he on display at the Museum of Arts and Sciences. It will move in the fall of 2001 to the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville; and in spring of 2002 to the Tampa Bay History Center.

A concurrent exhibition is Cuba in Old Maps which showcases rare antique Cuban maps and charts from 1500 to 1900. Cuba in Old Maps is the first exhibition of its kind in the United States devoted solely to the mapping of Cuba. The exhibition features a chronological and thematic presentation of the finest examples of four centuries of international Cuban cartography from a variety of materials and sources. The maps will explore how both natives and outsiders viewed Cuba over the centuries, revealing academic, artistic, geographic, military and socio-political influences.



November 20, 2000 - July 31, 2001 - Ghent, Belgium
Museum voor de Geschiedenis van de Wetenschappen [Museum for the History of Sciences], exhibition organized by Ghent University: 150 jaar Landmeetkunde en Carlografte [150 Years of Land Surveys and Cartography], Sterrecomplex, Krijgslaan 281 - S30, B-9000 Ghent. Every day except week-ends, 10.00-12.30 and 13.00-17.00 Info ++32-(0)9 /264.49.30



June - August 2001 - Perth, Australia
A major exhibition of early modern art works, maps, and scientific instruments to be held in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery, the University of Western Australia. Some of the material promised has not been seen on public exhibition for thirty years.



May 5, 2001 - September 4, 2001 - Detroit, Michigan
Frontier Metropolis: Picturing Early Detroit 1701-1838 at the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, Strand Drive, Belle Isle.



April 3, 2001 - September 15, 2001 - Cambridge, England
Fantasy to Federation: European maps of Australia to 1901 is the title of a new exhibition that has just opened at the Exhibition Centre of Cambridge University Library. Included are 35 maps, views and manuscripts (plus reproductions of 10 more items) telling the story of Australia as seen through the eyes of European cartographers from the early explorers until the creation of the modern federal state in 1901. All of the items are from Cambridge University Library - most are from the Map Department, so you cannot afford not to come along and have a look!! The exhibition is open (closed 13-16 April & 27 August) Monday-Friday 09.00-18.00, Saturday 09.00-12.30. Admission is free.



September 16, 2001 - September 22, 2001 - Barcelona, Spain
Maps of the territory of Catalonia during a period of two hundred years, 1600-1800 will feature 64 maps of Catalonia at the Institut Cartogràfic de Catalunya at Parc de Montjuic. This exhibition is included among the events of the XXII Congress of the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie.



April 15, 2001 - October 1, 2001 - Cambridge, Massachusetts
Maps of Africa on display at the Harvard Map Collection, Pusey Library, Harvard University.



March 20, 2001 - October 6, 2001 - Jerusalem
The Israel Museum is staging an exhibition entitled Written in the Stars - Art and Symbolism of the Zodiac. A large number of exhibits will illustrate the role of the astrological signs in art painting and sculpture, literature and religion; but also in connection with everyday artefacts. Celestial globes from the 17th and 18th centuries (on loan from Austrian National Library, Globe Museum, Vienna) will complete the lively exhibition with its very useful English-language inscriptions. The catalogue, also in English, will be another addition to the museum's list of internationally known publications.



March 2001 - October 2001 - Bath, England
The American Museum in Britain, Claverton Manor, has an exhibition Painted Countries-The Production and Decoration of Early Maps. The earliest map on display is a manuscript zodiacal chart from the 12th century copy of Macrobius' "Commentary on the Dream of Scipio." The Dallas Pratt Collection of Historical Maps, housed at the Museum, consists of over 200 early world maps and pre-1600 Americana, most of which are printed, and a selection is on display for this exhibition in the New Gallery. Open: Tuesday to Sunday, 2-00-5.00, and Bank Holiday Sunday and Monday 11.00-5.00. Contact: Anne Armitage. Tel: 01225 460 503. Fax: 01225 480 726.



May 10, 2001 - October 28, 2001 - Potsdam, Germany
Berlin-Brandenburg im Kartenbild. Wie haben uns die anderen gesehen? Wie haben wir uns selbst gesehen? [Berlin-Brandenburg depicted in maps. How we were perceived by the others? How we have perceived ourselves?] Tuesday to Sunday 9.00-17.00, first Monday of each month free entrance. Potsdam-Museum, Breite Straße 8-12, 14467 Potsdam. For further information in German (the exhibition has been shown before in the Berlin State Library): http://www.sbb.spk-berlin.de/deutsch/ausstellungen/kartographie/index.html.



May 12, 2001 - October 28, 2001 - Landshut, Bavaria, Germany
Some 100 maps and views concerning the historic town Landshut in Bavaria and the development of the cartographic image of its surrounding area will be shown on location in the "Museum im Kreuzgang". For further information please contact: stadt.landshut.museum@landshut.org.



August 15, 2001 - October 29, 2001 - Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig im Kartenbild [Leipzig depicted in maps] at the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig, Altes Rathaus, Markt 1, D-04109, Leipzig. Information from either Stadtgeschichtliches Museum (Alice Hecht), or from Stadtarchiv Leipzig (Anett Mueller).



September 14, 2001 - December 2, 2001 - Lansing, Michigan
Frontier Metropolis: Images of Early Detroit. Celebrate Detroit's 300th birthday by exploring the community in its earliest days. Original maps, prints and paintings provide a pictorial journey down the streets of Detroit under French, British and finally American rule. Featured artifacts: Maps, prints and paintings dating from 1701 to 1838. This exhibit can be visited in the Michigan Historical Museum's first floor Special Exhibits Gallery, 717 West Allegan Street. Phone (517) 373-3559 for more information.



November 15, 2001 - December 15, 2001 - Florence, Italy
An exhibition displaying several important maps and scientific instruments from the collections of the Museum of History of Science, the Geographical Military Institute, and the National Library, will be held in the Tribuna Dantesca of the National Library.



October 5, 2001 - December 16, 2001 - Beloit, Wisconsin
Another America: An Exhibit of Native American Maps is on display at the Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit College. Beloit is located between Chicago IL and Madison WI, easily accessible on I-90. The original exhibit research and development was by Mark Warhus. The Logan Museum presentation of the exhibit is supplemented by artifacts from the museum's permanent collection and loans. Another America is presented courtesy of the American Geographical Society Collection, Golda Meir Library, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Additional loans courtesy of: Office of the State Archaeologist, University of Iowa; Nebraska State Historical Society, Museum of Nebraska History; and Illinois State Museum. The Logan Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. - 4 p.m; closed Mondays and College holidays. Museum admission is free. Additional information from William Green, Ph.D., Director, Logan Museum of Anthropology, Beloit College, 700 College St., Beloit, WI 53511 USA; phone 608-363-2119, fax 608-363-2248.



February 13, 2001 - December 21, 2001 - Portland, Maine
The Osher Map Library, located on the ground floor of the newly renovated Albert Brenner Glickman Family Library on the Portland campus of the University of Southern Maine, has an exhibition Road Maps, the American Way. Like jazz music, the automobile road map is an American innovation and is just as much a part of American culture. Road maps brought much needed order to the national road system. Through both illustration and cartography, they manifest the changes in the American landscape resulting from the twentieth century's "auto-mobility." Their covers promoted a romance of the road that sold gas, oil, batteries, tires, and other products. Most significantly, road maps created a core of American values based on the freedom of the open road. In this exhibition, you will see how road maps shaped this spirit - emphasizing a proud national history and promising a glorious future - through the magic of the automobile. The exhibition features a wide variety of maps and guidebooks from the first half of the twentieth century, published mostly by oil companies but also by automobile clubs, highway associations, and commercial map makers. So get out the road map to plot your course. . .and don't forget to buy our brand of gas!



September 27, 2001 - December 30, 2001 - New Haven, Connecticut
Europeans have been fascinated with the New World since the earliest voyages of exploration during the late fifteenth century. The British became actively involved in the exploration of the Americas and its peoples from the last quarter of the sixteenth century. ''Wilde Americk'': Discovery and Exploration of the New World, 1500-1850 will feature an unprecedented display of over 100 maps, atlases, prints, drawings, and illustrated travel accounts that document the expanding awareness and understanding of the New World in the European mind. Drawing primarily from the Yale Center for British Art's permanent collections, and especially from Paul Mellon's recent bequest to the museum.

Some of the great landmarks in the mapping and exploration of the Americas will be featured in ''Wilde Americk,'' from the very earliest maps and atlases showing the New World, published in the early sixteenth century, to beautiful aquatint landscape views of the United States and Canada issued at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Highlights of the exhibition will include an extraordinary pair of hand-drawn terrestrial and celestial globes made for the Bishop of Brixen around 1522. This will be the first public display of the globes in almost fifty years. The terrestrial globe, probably by the German astronomer and geographer Johannes Schöner, is the third oldest world sphere to survive. It is a version of the famous Martin Waldseemüller map of 1507, the first map to bear the name "America" after Amerigo Vespucci and to show the new discoveries of the Spanish and the Portuguese. The Center's globe has "America" written on the South American continent.

Early travel accounts will be on display, including Richard Hakluyt's Divers voyages, touching the discoverie of America (1582), the first book in English to refer to any part of what is now the United States. He details the exploits of the great English explorers, such as Sir Francis Drake. Among the treasures in the exhibition will be the earliest surviving manuscript map showing the route of Drake's circumnavigation in 1577-1580, drawn around 1587 after his excursions to the West Indies. The unique map details Drake's voyage through the Straits of Magellan and up the Pacific coast in search of a passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, in the course of which he claimed the coast lands of the present United States for Queen Elizabeth I. Also on view will be the set of five rare engraved maps by Baptista Boazio that commemorate Drake''s expedition of 1585-86, when he made raids on various communities in the West Indies. The Boazio plan of St. Augustine is famous as the first representation of any North American city north of Mexico.

Some of the earliest European views of Native Americans may be seen in the series of books about the New World published by the German Theodor de Bry from 1590-1634. De Bry includes Thomas Hariot's account of Sir Walter Raleigh's abortive attempt to found a colony in Virginia. Besides the earliest map of Virginia, Hariot's report has an engraved plate of a "yonge dowgter of the Pictes" after a drawing by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgue, one of the survivors of an ill-fated French attempt to colonize Florida between 1562 and 1568. The beautiful watercolor, painted on parchment in vivid colors, is one of the earliest drawings in the Center's collections. It shows a young woman completely covered in tattoos was used by De Bry to illustrate the similarities between the earliest inhabitants of Britain and the native peoples of Virginia.

The exhibition will include an extraordinary manuscript map of the southeastern part of North America, ascribed to famous Indian fighter Colonel John "Tuscarora Jack" Barnwell. Drawn in pen and ink and dated 1721, it is likely the earliest detailed English map of the southern frontier that survives; it formed the basis of subsequent mapping of the area until the American Revolution. The map gives the location of French, Spanish, Indian and English settlements, along with information concerning Indian tribes, traders' paths, and settlements.

Some of the great color-plate travel books published in the nineteenth century will be featured. They include works by the great German naturalist and traveler Alexander von Humboldt, famous for his epic journeys through South America from 1799 to 1804, and Prince Maximilien de Wied's Travels in the Interior of North America (1843), with spectacular chromolithographs by German artist Karl Bodmer.

The Yale Center for British Art is the most comprehensive collection of British art outside the United Kingdom. Its principal resource is the collection of British paintings, drawings, prints, rare books, and sculpture given to the University by Paul Mellon (Yale Class of 1929). The collection surveys the development of English art, life, and thought from the Elizabethan period to the present. The Yale Center for British Art is the final building designed by the American architect, Louis I. Kahn (1901-1974). The Center is located at 1080 Chapel Street on the corner of High Street, New Haven, Connecticut. It is open Tuesday - Saturday (10 am - 5 pm); Sunday (12 - 5 pm); closed Mondays. For a recorded listing of weekly museum tours and events call (203) 432-2800.