In-Person ARTalk - Belle da Costa Greene: The Woman Who Made the Morgan Library with Dr. Daria Rose Foner

This ARTalk with Dr. Daria Rose Foner from the Morgan Library and Museum will kick off the Library's 2021-22 ARTalks series and will focus on Belle da Costa Greene (1879-1950), one of the greatest librarian-scholars of the twentieth-century. Initially hired as J. Pierpont Morgan’s private librarian, Greene became the Morgan Library’s inaugural director when it opened as a public research institution in 1924. This talk introduces Greene and traces her life story from its origins in an upper middle-class African-American community in Washington D.C. to her ascension to the pinnacle of her profession and explores how the racial barriers of Jim Crow America led Greene, her mother, and her siblings to “pass” as white. 

Dr. Daria Rose Foner Biography

Dr. Daria Rose Foner is the Research Associate to the Director at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. At the Morgan, she has worked on a range of exhibitions and collections-based initiatives and done considerable research on the history of the institution. She is the Co-Director of the Belle Greene – Bernard Berenson letters project and with the Director has co-written an essay on J. P. Morgan as a collector of rare books and manuscripts that will be published next summer in Building the Bookman’s Paradise. Last year she received her doctorate from Columbia University. Work on her dissertation, “Collaborative Endeavors in the Career of Andrea del Sarto,” was supported by the Fulbright Association, the Medici Archive Project in Florence, the Renaissance Society of America, and the Italian Art Society. She is also the caa.reviews editor for New York exhibitions.

The Library's ARTalk series is dedicated to exploring the creative process through lectures, films, and workshops that focus on art, architecture, and design. ARTalks are co-sponsored by the Ridgefield Library, Ridgefield Guild of Artists and, in part, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art.

Masks are required for all individuals aged 2 and over entering the Library who are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19.  Masks are required for all individuals aged 2 and over entering and using the Lodewick Children’s Library regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status. Masks are optional for individuals entering the Library who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Masks must conform to current CDC recommendations.

Please register below. To see and register for upcoming ARTalks click here and scroll down.