The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library hopes to inspire an engagement with the past to transform the future. Our mission, as part of Yale Library, is to connect the public with collections, to foster inquiry and creativity, and to preserve a record of the past for study and inspiration.

This exhibition features books, manuscripts, and visual materials from many different time periods and locations. Some of the materials have been at Yale for decades, others have only recently been added to the collections.

What brings these items together? The groupings of materials on view in this exhibition—selected by curators from the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, subject specialists in the Area Studies department of Sterling Memorial Library, and Yale undergraduates—act as focused lessons in pairing the old with the new. We hope they kindle your imagination.

Creators represented in the exhibition include a broad array of artists and writers, including, to name a few, José María Alvarez, Simone de Beauvoir, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Elizabeth Catlett, Geoffrey Chaucer, Alexandre Dumas, Desiderius Erasmus, Barbara Hammer, Mustapha Khayati, Stephen Mopope, Georgia O’Keeffe, Gordon Parks, Mary E. Jones Parrish, Arthur Sze, Dora Teitelboim, Jacqueline Woodson, and Ren Xiong.

Barbara Hammer, whose work in film over five decades pioneered new pathways for lesbian visibility, often created outfits she wore when giving lectures or introducing her films at screenings. Five of her handmade outfits are on view. As she prepared her papers for transfer to the Beinecke Library in 2018, she made a special work to document the occasion. Titled Vintage Beinecke, this short film created with stopaction motion brings Hammer’s work full circle.