New York’s Morgan Library & Museum was founded as a public institution in 1924 and its centenary this year has been celebrated in style. The most substantial project to form part of the anniversary is the exhibition (25th October–4th May 2025) on Belle da Costa Greene (1879–1950; Fig.2), the museum’s inaugural Director.[1] This is an exercise in fascinating institutional storytelling, but at the same time also considerably more, as Greene was an extraordinary and accomplished figure. As a Black woman, director of a public museum, medievalist, librarian, collector and connoisseur, who navigated with great success the male-dominated world of wealth she worked in during the early twentieth century, she continues to inspire.  

Greene was brought up in Washington. Her mother was a music teacher and her father was the first Black graduate of Harvard University, who became a lawyer and professor. After her parents separated, Greene’s mother claimed European ancestry, and she and her children passed as white. The issues that arise from such a decision and the wider context in which it was made are sensitively explored in the exhibition, which deftly weaves the complexities of Greene’s upbringing and private life with her public roles. Greene first found work in the library at Princeton University in 1902, where her knowledge of rare books was nurtured. It was while at Princeton that she was also introduced to the formidable financier and collector J.P. Morgan whose librarian she became in 1905. He was soon reliant on Greene’s impressive skills and they shared the ambition to make Morgan’s collection pre-eminent in the realm of private libraries; later she often adopted a proprietorial stance, describing it as ‘her library’. From 1908 she was representing Morgan across America and abroad, viewing works and making purchases. Probably her most famous acquisition made on his behalf was secured in 1911 when she calmly bid at auction for a unique, complete copy of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur printed by William Caxton in 1485. The purchase and her role in it created a sensation in the press, as Greene’s winning bid was for just under $50,000 (although Morgan was in fact willing to pay double that sum). In 1912 she was interviewed for the New York Times and self-deprecatingly described herself as ‘simply a librarian’. The truth was far more varied and intriguing because as well as pursuing her professional responsibilities with great success and aplomb, she became part of avant-garde artistic circles in New York – for example, frequenting the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession run by Alfred Stieglitz. 

Morgan died in 1913 and Greene continued in her role for his son. When the library became a public institution in 1924, she was the natural candidate to be appointed its first Director, a position she held for twenty-four years. Her tenure was marked by many more brilliant acquisitions and a desire to ensure that the marvels of the collection became accessible through displays. 

The new exhibition gives full credit to Greene’s collecting, both institutional and personal. During her time as Director she added 138 illuminated manuscripts, 596 incunabula and more than 17,000 reference works to the library’s collection. Alongside such pursuits, her substantial income also enabled her to build up a more modest but nonetheless interesting private collection, which encompassed Chinese sculpture, Persian calligraphy (Fig.3), old master paintings and prints and modern drawings. The last group notably included a nude by Henri Matisse from 1912 (Fig.1). An enthusiasm for Matisse’s work was espoused by Bernard Berenson, whom Greene had first met in 1909 in Morgan’s library. They became friends, lovers, intellectual peers and correspondents over the next forty years. Greene destroyed the letters she received from Berenson, but hers to him survive at Villa I Tatti (the Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies) in Tuscany and they have been digitised as part of the wider efforts to enrich our understanding of her multifaceted life and connections.[2] The letters feature private matters of romance, as well as touching on art-historical debates and issues of politics. On 28th April 1945, Greene wrote to Berenson stating that they had both known a grand time ‘and lived a grand life’. 

In addition to such insights, the exhibition draws attention to Greene’s academic achievements, which largely remained unpublished but had later benefits. These included in the early 1930s her exposure of the so-called Spanish Forger, a painter in fact active in Paris from the 1890s to the 1920s, who created fake illuminated manuscripts. 

Greene seems to have been only rarely referred to in the past in the pages of this Magazine. A collection of specialist essays published in homage to her achievements was however reviewed in 1955 by Francis Wormald, who mentioned that at the time of her retirement an old friend had written to her noting her ‘long rule [at the Morgan had] been one of unexampled brilliance’.[3] Her life and achievements have since then become part of much wider scholarly and popular interest. Honouring her academic and curatorial skills, the Morgan Library & Museum now offers a full-time two-year Belle da Costa Greene Curatorial Fellowship. She has also been celebrated as the subject of historical fiction and biographies. Following the staging of this engrossing exhibition, surely a filmic portrayal beckons.

[1] Catalogue: Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy. Edited by Erica Ciallela and Philip S. Palmer. 304 pp. incl. numerous col. ills (DelMonico Books, New York, 2024), $49.95. ISBN 978–1–63681–135–2. 

[2] ‘The letters of Belle da Costa Greene to Bernard Berenson’, available at bellegreene.itatti.harvard.edu/resource/Start, accessed 12th November 2024. 

[3] F. Wormald: ‘In honour of Belle da Costa Greene’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 97 (1955), p.185.