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Morgan Library & Museum presents Beatrix Potter. The Picture Letters

Morgan Library & Museum presents Beatrix Potter. The Picture Letters, an exhibition on view until January 27, 2013.

Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) Illustration from The Tale of Benjamin Bunny Gift of Julia P. Wightman, 1991 Frederick Warne & Co. is the owner of all rights, copyrights and trademarks in the Beatrix Potter character names and illustrations.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit and other books by Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) have become classics of children’s literature and represent one of the most successful publishing enterprises in the history of the British book trade. Yet Peter Rabbit began not as a commercial publishing venture, but as a story created to entertain the child of a family friend—all told in an eight-page letter illustrated with pen- drawn vignettes.

The Morgan Library & Museum will explore the extraordinary tale of how a largely self-taught artist and writer used a series of private letters to develop some of the most vividly depicted animal characters in all of children’s literature—in the process creating a wholly original artistic and literary style.

Beatrix Potter: The Picture Letters brings together for the first time twenty-two letters from important American private holdings as well as from three major institutional collections: the Morgan, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University. The letters will be supplemented and enhanced with more than eighty related items, including printed books, original artwork, manuscripts, and early children’s toys and games inspired by Potter’s stories.

The Morgan Library & Museum 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405 212.685.0008 www.themorgan.org