Cartography - Calendar of Exhibitions


The "Fascinating World of Maps and Mapping" can be explored from Oddens's Bookmarks.
To learn more about non-current maps see Map History / History of Cartography.
Meeting announcements can be found at Cartography - Calendar of Events.
Click here for archive of past exhibitions.
Indefinite - Bucharest
The Muzeul National al Hartilor si Cartii Vechi [National Museum of Maps and Old Books], Strada Londra nr. 39, is a unique presence in the Romanian museum landscape. Its existence is due to the map-drawing collection donated with generosity by the former Prime Minister and his wife, Adrian and Daniela Nastase, who are the founders of this culture house. Other maps came from gifts received by former President Ion Iliescu and from the collections of some important commercial banks. The entire collection totals more than 800 maps and engravings, drawings, lithographs etc. as well as a few specific objects to the museum theme; and is displayed in 16 rooms which combine the scientific part with the artistic one.



Indefinite - Jacksonville, Florida
The Lewis Ansbacher Map Collection contains some 244 antiquarian maps of Florida and Florida cities, North and South America, and the world. It includes historical views and plates focusing on northern Florida. Most of these maps are on permanent display in the Morris Ansbacher Map Room on the fourth floor of the Main Library, 303 N. Laura Street. Additional information 813-228-0097.



Indefinite - Tampa, Florida
Four Hundred Years of Florida Maps 1513 to 1913 features twenty-seven items selected from the J. Thomas and Lavinia W. Touchton Collection of Florida Cartography at The Tampa Bay History Center, 801 Old Water Street. These maps and charts represent some of the "Florida" map-makers visions that have been created over the past 400 years.



Indefinite - The Hague
De verdieping van Nederland : duizend jaar Nederland aan de hand van topstukken uit de Koninklijke Bibliotheek en het Nationaal Archief [The legacy of the Netherlands : a thousand years of Dutch history based on treasures from the National Library of the Netherlands and the National Archives] is an exhibition at Prins Willem Alexanderhof of items from the National Library and National Archives. Included are several manuscript and printed cartographic items. Telephone information 070-3140911/070-3315400.



Indefinite - Vienna
The Globe Museum of the Austrian National Library, Palais Mollard, Herrengasse 9, is the world's only institution devoted to the study of globes and related instruments like armillary spheres and planetariums. On display in eight rooms are many of the more than 460 globes owned by the Museum. Additionally there is a bilingual (German and English) multimedia presentation about globe history, globe making, and the use of globes. Additional information from Tel.: (+43 1) 534 10-710 or Fax: (+43 1) 534 10-319.



Indefinite - Washington
Exploring the Early Americas is an exhibition featuring the 1507 Waldseemüller "World Map," the first map to use the name America; and rotating items from the Jay I. Kislak Collection, which includes rare books, manuscripts, historic documents, maps and art of the Americas. Also on display is Waldseemüller's "Carta Marina" or Navigators' Chart; and the Schöner Sammelbund, a portfolio that contained two world maps and other cartographic materials. The exhibition is in the Northwest Gallery of the Jefferson Building, Library of Congress. The exhibit is free and open to the public.



November 3, 2007 - January 3, 2010 - Texas
The exhibit, titled Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps, consists of 64 historic maps from the Yana and Marty Davis map collection dating from 1548 to 2006. The exhibit will have maps that deal with railroads, shipping and trading posts. The maps range from 16th-century exploration to the development of airlines. The book "Going to Texas" is based on the exhibit (Texas Christian University Press, 2007, ISBN-13: 978-0875653440). This exhibit will travel around Texas during its two-year tour. It can be seen at:
Old Red Museum of Dallas County History and Culture in Dallas - November 3, 2007 - February 28, 2008
Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon - March 13, 2008 - April 24, 2008
Museum of the Southwest in Midland - May 8, 2008 - June 19, 2008
Mayborn Museum Complex at Baylor University in Waco - July 3, 2008 - August 14, 2008
Museum of South Texas History in Edinburg - September 10, 2008 - October 12, 2008
Museum of Texas Tech University in Lubbock- November 6, 2008 - December 14, 2008
Museum of the Big Bend in Alpine - January 2, 2009 - February 21, 2009
Centennial Museum in El Paso - March 5, 2009 - April 16, 2009
Old Jail Art Center in Albany - June 6, 2009 - September 6, 2009
National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth - November 6, 2009 - January 3, 2010



June 1, 2008 - December 31, 2009 - Savannah
Mapping the Past: A Selection of Antique Cartography from the Newton Collection, lst Floor Map Galleries. Newton Center for British-American Studies, Savannah College of Art and Design, 227 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. (2 doors north of the Savannah Visitors Center). Open to the public free of charge Mon.-Fri. 10am-5pm. After Sep. 1, the Museum will be open Sunday 1-5pm. Maps depicting North America, Great Britain, Georgia, and the world are on view in the Newton Center's three map galleries. Highlights include 1597 maps from the earliest atlas of the Americas, 1776 military maps, and other 18th- and 19th-century maps, many of them hand colored. Cartographers include Wytfliet, Hondius, Monath, Lotter, d'Anville, Faden, Lodge, Cary, and Wyld. For further information or to arrange group tours, Maureen Burke, Ph.D., Exec. Museum Director, Newton Center Museum; call (912) 525-7191.



February 6, 2009 - January 10, 2010 - Springfield
To celebrate the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, the Illinois State Museum presents an interdisciplinary exhibition entitled From Humble Beginnings: Lincoln's Illinois 1830-1861 which will explore the Illinois that Lincoln knew through objects and stories of the people who lived here. Objects and artifacts from the exhibition include maps of Illinois from the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s.



March 19, 2009 - March 31, 2010 - Mason, Texas
The Mason Square Museum, 103 Fort MacKavitt, will present a new exhibit of Rare Maps of America and the lands that are now Texas. Beginning with maps as early as 1595 by Magini and Porro, the display includes early cartography showing the shores of the new world only a hundred years after its discovery. The collection includes maps by A. Ortelius from a small atlas of 1601 and a decorative map of "Americae" by Gerard Mercator from 1610. Several examples show the progressive understanding of the shape and errors in geographical information, including maps showing California as an island, and spanning the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Mapmakers such as Philipp Cluver, G. De'Lisle, and Merian are represented and the political boundaries often change with the nationality of the map publisher. The Mason Square Museum is open Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For more information call 325 347 0507 or 325 347 6781.



March 22, 2009 - December 2009 - Jerusalem
A new exhibition, Echoes of Egypt, is at the Bible Lands Museum, 25 Granot Street. The exhibit celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Israel-Egypt Peace Agreement. It includes photographs, lithographs and prints from 19th-century Egypt, as well as maps that date back to the 16th century.



April 24, 2009 - November 8, 2009 - Vienna
The Austrian National Library exhibit Annäherung an die Ferne [Rapprochement with Far Distant Places] features geographic treasures from the National Library. The exhibition is based on the Blaeu Atlas Maior with some examples coming from the Blaeu - Van der Hem Atlas, the only existing copy of which is held by this Library. Exhibit can be seen in Ceremonial Hall, Austrian National Library, Josefsplatz 1.



May 2, 2009 - January 1, 2010 - Mystic, Connecticut
Mapping the Pacific Coast: Coronado to Lewis and Clark, The Quivira Collection, an exhibition of rare and historic maps dating from 1544 to 1802, will be at Mystic Seaport. On loan from the private collection of Henry and Holly Wendt of Washington, the traveling exhibit features more than 30 historic maps, illustrations and books. The exhibit takes viewers along a chronological journey, beginning with the collection's oldest map - a rare 1544 woodcut by Sebastian Munster - and ending with Thomas Jefferson's decision to commission the Corps of Discovery.



May 18, 2009 - November 1, 2009 - Washington
Jamestown, Québec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings, the International Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, utilizes rare surviving Native and European artifacts, maps, documents, and ceremonial objects from museums and royal collections on both sides of the Atlantic. The result is a path-breaking exhibition. A 1622 broadside advises English settlers on what to pack for their journey to the Virginia. A wampum belt from the French royal collection illustrates how gift-giving became an important tactic as the French sought alliances with the Huron people. Spanish armor engraved with Christian symbols exemplifies the religious dimension of the Spanish conquest of New Mexico. The Smithsonian's International Gallery, located in the S. Dillon Ripley Center on the National Mall at 1100 Jefferson Drive S.W.



May 23, 2009 - January 3, 2010 - Greenwich
Adventure, failure and disaster in one of the most hostile environments on Earth will be the subjects tackled in a new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum. North-West Passage: An Arctic Obsession features more than 120 objects including maps, letters and native Inuit artefacts, aimed at bringing British exploration of the Arctic to life.



May 29, 2009 - November 15, 2009 - San Francisco
San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, 654 Mission Street, will show Agents of Change: Civic Idealism and the Making of San Francisco. Through compelling content spanning a variety of media--historical maps, photographs, recorded interviews and an interactive multimedia installation--this major exhibition examines the history of citymaking in San Francisco, and challenges visitors to consider today's urban issues in light of their own values.



June 13, 2009 - January 10, 2010 - Yonkers, New York
When Henry Hudson's vessel, the Half Moon, sailed into New York Harbor in 1609, his voyage marked the unfolding of a New World. The Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, will mark the anniversary of Hudson's voyage to the New World with the exhibition Dutch New York: The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture. The exhibition will explore the Dutch legacy of a liberal, capitalist and multicultural environment that permeated the colony of New Netherland and still characterizes New York City today. The museum will bring the story of Dutch influence to life through paintings, decorative arts, maps and ephemera drawn from the museum's collections and from other museums, including the Museum of the City of New York, the National Gallery of Art, the New York Historical Society, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and Yale University Art Gallery.



June 24, 2009 - November 30, 2009 - Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gleams of a Remoter World: Mapping the European Alps explores how European cartographers over the centuries have responded to the challenge of mapping the Alps. It surveys the range of techniques employed to represent mountains in graphic form: from the stylized hill profiles of Renaissance maps to recent topographic maps that combine contours, hill shading, rock drawing, and landscape tints to create a naturalistic, three-dimensional impression of the terrain. The exhibit looks at a variety of cartographic genres, including maps celebrating military conquest, panoramic views for tourists, guides for hikers and skiers, national surveys, and transportation maps. Exhibit can be seen at Map Gallery Hall, Pusey Library, Harvard College Library. Hours 9:00 - 5:00, Monday - Friday. For details contact Joseph Garver 617-495-2417.



June 25, 2009 - January 17, 2010 - Manchester
A unique collection of rare Manchester maps reveals how worries about congestion and binge drinking were just as prevalent 100-years-ago as they are today. The drawings, part of an exhibition of 80 maps unseen in public for up to 200 years, can be seen at The Historic Reading Room, John Rylands Library, Deansgate. On display at Mapping Manchester - Cartographic Stories of the City is material held by The University of Manchester and other institutions in the city, including generous loans of materials from the Manchester City Library and Archives, Chetham's Library and the Manchester Geographical Society. There is an e-catalogue edited by Martin Dodge and Chris Perkins on-line at http://personalpages.manchester.ac.uk/staff/m.dodge/mappingmanchester//e-catalogue.pdf.



July 3, 2009 - March 7, 2010 - Albany
The New York State Museum, Empire State Plaza, exhibit 1609 honors the quadricentennial of Henry Hudson's discovery of the Hudson River, with documents, maps and images. The New York State Museum collaborated with the State Archives, State Library, and Office of Educational Television and Public Broadcasting on 1609, and these institutions provided additional expertise, documents, and artifacts for the exhibition. Phone (518) 474-5877 for additional information.



July 3, 2009 - November 28, 2009 - Liverpool
The exhibition, Making Plans: 100 years of Civic Design, charts the origins, history and impact of the Department of Civic Design at the University of Liverpool, which was the world's first department for the study of town planning. The exhibition comprises historic materials including portraits, photographs, maps and plans of notable developments in Liverpool, London and other parts of the country. The exhibit can be seen at the University's Victoria Gallery & Museum.



August, 2009 - May, 2010 - Washington
In a world where we can keep tabs on our own backyards from our desks at work, via satellite, it's difficult to imagine the impact one man armed with notebooks and pencils could have in 1861 as the Civil War began to rend our young nation. Generals on both sides of that conflict desperately needed good topographical information to plan attack and defense. One good mapmaker could be worth battalions of firepower. Into this fray stepped a New York-born schoolteacher named Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828-1899). Jed had moved to Virginia, and initially aided the Confederate war effort by hauling supplies. Before long, he was making maps for Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett, and eventually he became the mapmaker for Gen. Robert E. Lee and Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson. These history-changing maps are the subject of an exhibition, Jed Hotchkiss, Shenandoah Valley Mapmaker, in the foyer of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress in the basement of the Madison Building, 101 Independence Avenue. Hotchkiss' maps, many drawn from horseback, were extraordinary for their accuracy. Jackson's successes in the 1862 campaign were largely credited to those remarkable maps. Hotchkiss, who rose to the rank of major, also was entrusted with choosing lines of defense and arranging troops during several crucial battles. Contact Ed Redmond at (202) 707-8548 for additional information.



August 30, 2009 - November 29, 2009 - Columbus, Georgia
Drawing on the rich holdings of the Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama, X Marks the Spot: Our Region in Five Centuries of Maps, at The Columbus Museum, 1251 Wynnton Road, will feature a selection of maps that chart the development of the Chattahoochee Valley over the course of five centuries. On display will be maps from Hoole as well as the Columbus Museum's growing collection, ranging from a rare 1593 depiction of North America to an oversized 20th-century rendering of Muscogee County. The Hoole Library contains one of the strongest and largest collections of maps of the southeastern United States, many of which portray areas of Georgia and Alabama in significant detail. In addition to highlighting the art of the mapmaker, this exhibition will chronicle the transition of this area from Native American population center to our modern environment.



September 1, 2009 - December 31, 2009 - Fort Wayne, Indiana
Maps in the Old World were very important. They were so important that they were highly guarded and rarely folded. A ship's captain was likely to destroy navigation maps, rather than to let them fall into the hands of enemies or competitors. Such maps are part of the Turkish Maps exhibit at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum, 3039 Piqua Ave. The maps in this exhibit are mostly such textbook map illustrations. On many, you will notice the exquisitely executed hand drawings/paintings of the characters representing various areas, along with flags, castles, and even galleons, ships and fish in the seas and oceans.



September 4, 2009 - December 31, 2009 - Kansas City
The Missouri Valley Special Collections Department of the Kansas City Public Library presents the new, original exhibit Keys to the City: The Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps of Kansas City, Missouri, 1895-1957 at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St. Urban and industrial growth in Kansas City during the 1860s made fire disasters a real possibility, and fire insurance companies formed to protect businesses and homeowners from catastrophic financial losses. In 1866, D.A. Sanborn founded a company that created maps to help insurance companies evaluate fire risks. Though Sanborn died in 1883, his company went on to make detailed and accurate maps of the Kansas City area beginning in 1895-1896. Using the Sanborn maps, today's historians, genealogists, and environmentalists can discover how Kansas City developed over time from a small city to a booming metropolis. This local history exhibit showcases four Kansas City neighborhoods as they stood at different points in the first half of the 20th century. A variety of postcards, photographs, and advertisements complement the Sanborn maps and shed light on the history of Kansas City families, leisure, business, and industry.



September 8, 2009 - January 3, 2010 - Austin, Texas
The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, will present the exhibition Other Worlds: Rare Astronomical Works, showcasing items from the center's science collection that survey some of the most important astronomical discoveries of the last 500 years. Coinciding with the International Year of Astronomy, Other Worlds displays how the historical role of astronomy has come to influence the way the modern world is perceived. The exhibition spans history as it examines the evolution of astronomy. Drawing from a variety of sources, the exhibition features books, photographs and original illustrations. With more than 40 rare editions of works by astronomers such as Johannes Kepler and Tycho Brahe, Other Worlds includes works by the individuals whose ideas revolutionized astronomical thought. Highlights include the Coronelli celestial globe (1688); Copernicus's De Revolutionibus (1543); first editions of works by Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Isaac Newton; and the first map of the moon. Other Worlds: Rare Astronomical Works can be seen at the Ransom Center on Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended Thursday hours to 7 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays the galleries are open from noon to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays.



September 12, 2009 - January 7, 2010 - New York
Exploring the beginnings of New York as a pluralistic seaport and crossroads of goods and cultures that continues to shape American character and identity, the South Street Seaport Museum, 207 Front Street, will present New Amsterdam: The Island at the Center of the World. The exhibition will be the centerpiece of a citywide celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's exploration of New York's harbor under the Dutch flag. The program will commemorate the founding of New Amsterdam by Dutch traders who planted the seed for enduring American characteristics, such as diversity, tolerance, and free trade. New Amsterdam: Island at the Center of the World will offer insight into Manhattan's fabled past as America's greatest natural harbor. The Dutch established the harbor before the British took control of it in 1664, a period in New York's history that has long been overlooked. Forward-thinking Dutch recognized the importance of New York as a gateway into the new world and played a significant role in the development of the port from a remote trading post into a global economic, cultural, and political center. The exhibition will narrate the story of Manhattan's beginnings with more than 50 rare maps, landscapes, broadsides, prints, portraits, and letters, illuminating 17th-century New York life. These artifacts will be accompanied by maps of important world cities of the era, allowing visitors to learn about the founding of New York in the context of international urban history and growing trade networks. New Amsterdam: Island at the Center of the World will be organized into three thematic sections. One section is dedicated to the work of 17th-century cartographer Johannes Vingboons, who drew hundreds of maps of cities and trading posts worldwide. The maps serve as a window into the competitive arena of global commerce in the 1600s, showing the settlements of Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch trading companies in places as far flung as Nova Scotia and Japan. Visitors will be able to trace the origins of the first generation of New Yorkers who traveled thousands of miles across the sea to work in, and ultimately settle, New Amsterdam, which quickly emerged as a 17th-century global trade hub. Another section includes rare maps, views, and plans of Manhattan Island from the 1660s.



September 16, 2009 - February 26, 2010 - Toronto
The Archives of Ontario Gallery, 134 Ian Macdonald Boulevard, exhibit Ontario-On The Map features original maps from the past three centuries. The exhibit illustrates how the purpose of early provincial maps changed from tools for settlement and exploitation of resources to tools for understanding the evolving cultural and physical landscape of Ontario. Free to public, 9-5, M-F.



September 18, 2009 - January 10, 2010 - Prato, Italy
The Style of the Tsar exhibition at Prato Textile Museum, Via Santa Chiara 24, will include exhibits from the collections of the most important Russian museums as The State Hermitage Museum, the Russian Museum in Saint Petersburg, the Kremlin Museums and the Tretiakov Gallery in Moscow as well as items from many Italian institutes including Polo Museale Fiorentino museums. The exhibition will bring together approximately 150 works of art illustrating the way in which cultural, trade and diplomatic relations developed between Italy and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, especially as a result of the trading of Italian textiles. There are three parts to the exhibition, and the second part uses a series of maps and travel diaries written by merchants and ambassadors of the time to outline the territory of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and provide an image of the tsar.



September 18, 2009 - January 9, 2010 - Washington
Early modern Europeans imagined China as a land of wonder, of riches, and of enormous opportunity. The exhibition Imagining China: The View from Europe, 1550-1700 displays rare books and maps from the Folger Shakespeare Library collection, along with items from the Library of Congress and the Walters Arts Museum. Exhibition is at Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE.



September 25, 2009 - June 26, 2010 - New York
Mapping New York's Shoreline: 1609-2009 is at the New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. This is a "Hudson-Fulton-Champlain exhibition" that will take the waterside view of New York harbor and its neighboring watersheds, wetlands, coastlines, sounds, and shores. The exhibition will put the port in its historic context at the midpoint along the northwest coast of the Atlantic, a point aimed at by Henry Hudson as he sought the mythical Northwest Passage to Asia. The Dutch settled in the area when it was found to be a convenient port for trans-shipment of furs and pelts back across the North Atlantic to Amsterdam. The British found it handy to bivouac here throughout the American Revolution, and mapped and charted the area thoroughly during their stay. Once the United States was established, the need for accurate, locally produced charts was met by private concerns and the newly established United States Survey of the Coast. With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, the port of New York came into its own as a major export station for wheat, corn and other produce from the heart of America. The complexity of the piers and ferries and shoreline businesses gives a vibrancy and unique flavor to the maps and charts of the port of New York and neighboring waters: Connecticut River, Long Island Sound, the Raritan, Sandy Hook, the Jersey shore and the Delaware River. This entire area was once called Nieuw Nederland, an aspect of local history that is much forgotten.



September 27, 2009 - January 10, 2010 - Houston
To mark the 40th anniversary of manīs landing on the moon, the Museum of Fine Arts presents The Moon: "Houston, Tranquility Base Here. The Eagle has Landed," an exhibition that chronicles manīs enduring fascination over five centuries with our nearest planetary neighbor. Ranging from moonlit landscapes by the Old Masters and the Impressionists, to Ansel Adamsī iconic Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941) and shots famously taken on the moon by the members of Apollo 11, the exhibition provides a dazzling overview of five centuries of moon-gazing. In addition, early scientific instruments, books, moon globes, maps, Galileo Galileiīs 1610 treatise on the moon, and objects from NASA will be on view. The Moon will be presented in the Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main Street.



October 1, 2009 - November 20, 2009 - Danville, California
An exhibit, Indian Life, about the Indians of the San Ramon Valley features Indian Resources. Included are tools, maps, and clothing. Exhibit is in the Museum of the San Ramon Valley, located at the corner of Railroad and Prospect Avenues. Open Tuesday to Friday 1 to 4, Saturday 10 to 1.



October 2, 2009 - March 5, 2010 - Bristol, Indiana
Local history enthusiasts will not want to miss the upcoming Mapping Elkhart County exhibit at the Elkhart County Historical Museum, 304 W. Vistula (HWY 120). Thirty seldom before-seen maps from the Historical Society collection will be displayed in the museum's temporary exhibit gallery. Elkhart's earliest known plat map completed in 1832 will be among the highlights. The map was signed by Havilah Beardsley and included land along the Elkhart River from Washington to Jackson Streets. Among the earliest plat maps to be shown will be Crane's Addition to Goshen along Rock Run Creek (1832), Plat of the Town of Benton (1834), and a traveler's pocket map for the Midwest (1834). Also included will be a unique national map published by J.H. Colton & Company, New York in 1856 that included Goshen. Maps shown after the American Civil War will focus on improvements made to infrastructure. Before 1874 Nappanee was primarily a small farming community, and not until the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad created a route through the area did Nappanee grow. The surveyor's map for the railroad's development through the area will be shown. Essentially this plan laid the foundation for the growth of the city, and many residents from neighboring Locke moved south to live and prosper along the new railroad. A 1924 roads map and an 1888 drainage ditch map for Washington Township will also be included. Surveying equipment and map drawing tools will be displayed alongside the maps. The museum is open Tuesday - Saturday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.



October 2, 2009 - January 17, 2010 - Santa Rosa, California
It has been 41 years since Apollo 8, the first manned space mission to escape the gravitational field of earth. One of the lasting images from that mission, and one of the most influential of all time, is the photograph Earthrise. The image of the earth, out in space, inspired a new consciousness of the planet and its place in the universe. Reaching back much further in time, yet exploring a similar leap forward, is the exhibition Envisioning the World: The First Printed Maps 1472-1700 at the Sonoma County Museum, 425 7th Street. The exhibition delves into the journey to understanding the world, its true size and shape, as well as its place in the system of heavenly bodies. At the core of this exhibition are thirty maps that originated in the major centers of post-Renaissance Europe and are now in the private collection of Henry and Holly Wendt. The Museum exhibited another collection of maps belonging to the Wendts in 2004 in the exhibition "Mapping the Pacific Coast: Coronado to Lewis and Clark." While that exhibition focused on the exploits of explorers, Envisioning the World focuses on an adventure of the mind. It takes the viewer from simple "T and O" maps that fused medieval Christian thought with sources dating back to the ancient Greeks, all the way to highly complex charts that display an advanced understanding of the world and the motions of the heavenly bodies. Following the intellectual thread of western culture, it is a story that touches on ancient Greek scholars, famous astronomers such as Copernicus, the navigators of the great age of exploration and the interplay between the growth of scientific thought and the power of the church. The maps themselves are also great works of art, reflecting rapid improvement in printing and engraving techniques.



October 10, 2009 - January 17, 2010 - Kleinburg, Ontario
Land is identity in Inuit art. According to the western viewpoint, maps are visual representations that clearly define and mark geographical locations and boundaries, but for the Inuit of Cape Dorset (Kinngait), Nunavut, maps are a mode of storytelling. And every piece of land has a story to tell at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection's (10365 Islington Avenue) new exhibit, Nunannguaq: In the Likeness of the Earth, which features a large selection of prints, drawings, and sculptures spanning three generations of Cape Dorset artists. "The Inuit's approach to mapping was based mostly on oral tradition," explains Anna Stanisz, exhibition curator. "The Inuit based maps on orientation points such as the best meeting places and hunting grounds or the perfect place to go fishing, and these all served as sources of communication and information." Stanisz explains that before the explorers set foot in the Arctic, the Inuit traveled throughout the vast land without the use of maps or any other written documentation. They instead counted on their geographic knowledge, which had been passed through many generations by oral means. And this is why Stanisz decided to use the word "Nunannguaq" as the first word in the exhibition. The word translates into "in the likeness of the earth," in Inuktitut, and Stanisz thought this was fitting since the art featured in the exhibition relays the Inuit concept that the land could never be fully captured - there was always a sense of mystery and elusiveness. The drawings of maps at the McMichael interweave collective memories of previous trips with environmental information to be passed on to fellow travelers, such as alerts about the changing landscape, the directions of winds or the conditions of snow and ice. The bulk of the collection of historical maps in the McMichael exhibition date back the early 1900s, when European explorers journeyed to Canada's Arctic, eager to carve out a piece of themselves. They asked the region's residents for help to map out the wide and wondrous new land they had arrived in. The result of that venture now hangs on the walls of the McMichael. The historical Inuit maps displayed in Nunannguaq: In the Likeness of the Earth provides an important visual context to the early works of Cape Dorset artists.



October 15, 2009 - December 15, 2009 - Forsyth, Missouri
The journey of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark across the Missouri region is told in maps and materials on display at the White River Valley Historical Society Museum, 297 Main Street. The exhibit is loaned to the Historical Society by the Missouri State Archives. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday.



October 15, 2009 - December 19, 2009 - Pessac, France
Of the 156 views and plans of Bordeaux reported so far in a dozen archives, most are kept in municipal archives Représenter Bordeaux aims to present "cartographic imagination" of Bordeaux through the selection of thirty pieces from this group. The exhibition is at Archéopôle d'Aquitaine, Université Michel de Montaigne, Domaine Universitaire; Tel: +33 (0) 557 12 44 44 Fax: +33 (0) 557 12 44 90.



October 15, 2009 - August 21, 2010 - Portland, Maine
American Treasures celebrates the reopening of the newly renovated and expanded Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education, University of Southern Maine, by simultaneously exploring the library's rich and varied collections and its mission to make those collections accessible. The exhibition presents a sampling of some of the library's remarkable items from its focus on Maine and New England, the USA, and the Americas (North and South). These items demonstrate how OML's collections are incorporated into K-12 and undergraduate education, public education through exhibitions, and scholarly research with wide import. The result is a visually stunning show that reinforces how maps offer such compelling insights into the past that anyone, regardless of age or educational level, can enjoy and learn from them - they are indeed a treasure.



October 16, 2009 - January 16, 2010 - Vatican City
The Astrum 2009 exhibition in the Vatican Museums will showcase astronomical instruments over four centuries old next to the most modern counterparts. The exhibit includes some 130 objects, including instruments, maps, manuscripts of Galileo Galilei, models of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems, paintings, photographs, codes and books. The exhibition coincides with the International Year of Astronomy, promoted by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO.



October 18, 2009 - January 10, 2010 - Minneapolis
the Louvre and the Masterpiece is an exhibit of more than 60 artworks, including Vermeer's "The Astronomer," on loan from the Louvre museum in Paris. A related exhibit Night Sky in the Age of Vermeer: 'The Astronomer' in Context is a show of 17th century prints, maps and objects including an astrolabe, a celestial globe and a book shown in the Vermeer painting. Both exhibitions can be seen at Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2400 Third Avenue South.



October 19-31, 2009 - San Bernardino, California
A collection of Ottoman-era maps from the great Ottoman Turkish cartographers of the 16th and 17th centuries -- Admiral Pîrî Reis and scholar Kâtip Çelebi -- is on display at Anthropology Museum in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences Building, SB-307, California State University, San Bernardino. The show is a tribute to Kâtip Çelebi, the well-known 17th century historian, geographer and bibliographer, on the 400th anniversary of his birth. The Ottomans' Worldview: from Pîrî Reis to Kâtip Çelebi includes detailed maps from the two prominent men who made some of the most important contributions to Ottoman geography and cartography together. The show also features maps from other geographers of the 16th and 17th centuries as well as maps of Ottoman territories from various European geographers of the time.



October 26, 2009 - January 3, 2010 - Frisco, Texas
Artifacts and memorabilia that pay homage to The Shawnee Trail and explores and depicts authentic Texas cattle drives are on display for the first time ever at the Frisco Heritage Museum, 6455 Page Street. The exhibit, installed on the second floor of the Heritage Museum, is made possible by former Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau CEO, Doug Harman, and consists of clothing, accessories, maps, spurs, guns, and saddles.



October 30, 2009 - January 24, 2010 - Vatican City
A new Vatican exhibit highlights the life of a Jesuit missionary whose extraordinary intelligence, culture and open-mindedness helped him bring Christianity to imperial China four centuries ago. The exhibit is part of a series of events marking the 400th anniversary of the death of Father Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit who spent 28 years evangelizing, absorbing Chinese culture and bringing Western science to the faraway Asian continent. The show in the Braccio di Carlo Magno hall in St. Peter's Square, is titled On the Crest of History, Father Matteo Ricci (1552-1610): Between Rome and Peking. It was Father Ricci's scientific acumen and enthusiasm for cultural exchange that won the trust and admiration of the Ming Dynasty Emperor Wanli. A proficient cartographer, Father Ricci was perhaps most appreciated for the maps of the world he made for the Chinese, who at the time had little knowledge of the other continents, said Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums and head curator of the exhibit. The exhibit is divided into two parts. The first section highlights the Jesuit order and scientific knowledge of the time; it includes an immense painting from 1619 of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, by Peter Paul Rubens and scientific instruments from the 16th and 17th centuries, including astrolabes, telescopes, early mechanical clocks, and Ptolemaic and Copernican models of the earth. The second part of the exhibit is dedicated to Father Ricci's stay in China; it includes displays of his translations and examples of documents he wrote in Chinese, Portuguese and Italian; Chinese tapestries; 17th- and 18th-century Chinese statuary; and a colorful early-20th-century altar honoring Confucius that belongs to the Vatican Museums.



October 31, 2009 - March 13, 2010 - Hamilton, Ontario
Rare and fascinating maps that chronicle the evolution of human knowledge about the countries in the Gulf region will go on display for the first time in North America at the McMaster Museum of Art, Alvin A. Lee Building University Avenue at Sterling St. The Gulf in Historic Maps is an exhibit of 96 maps is from the collection of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan Bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah, an avid collector and scholar of ancient Gulf maps. It comprises both nautical and geographic maps dating from the Renaissance - considered the golden age of exploration - to the mid-19th century.



November 6, 2009 - March 26, 2010 - Berlin
In addition to Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter is considered the founder of scientific geography in the early 19th Century. The year 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of their deaths. While Humboldt was honored on this occasion in many places, Carl Ritter is usually forgotten. For the Geographical Society of Berlin, the anniversary is therefore a welcome opportunity for a fresh look at the life and work of its honorary chairman and longtime supporter Carl Ritter. Der „andere Gründervater" der Geographie: Carl Ritter (1779-1859) und seine Bedeutung für die Geographie - eine Veranstaltung zum 150. Todestag is an exhibit at Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, Alexander-von-Humboldt-Haus, Arno-Holz-Str. 14.



November 7, 2009 - February 7, 2010 - Edinburgh
Picturing Britain: Paul Sandby is a major exhibition of the work of the artist and topographical draughtsman Paul Sandby (1731-1809) at the National Gallery of Scotland. Commemorating the bicentenary of his death, this is the first exhibition devoted to this pioneering figure in the development of British landscape painting and topographical drawing, and it includes works lent by the Royal Collection, National Library of Scotland, Yale Centre for British Art, and the British Museum. Sandby was appointed chief draughtsman to the Roy Military Survey in 1747. Although he was an artist well-versed in continental traditions, his early employment as a map-maker and topographical draughtsman led him to produce carefully observed and composed views of the native British landscape, including scenes taken in and around London, or on extensive tours through England, Wales and Scotland. The exhibit moves to the Royal Academy of Arts, London: 13 March 2010 - 13 June 2010. A richly illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.



November 12, 2009 - January 10, 2010 - Madison, New Jersey
Fairleigh Dickinson University Library's collection of Geographical maps of Afghanistan will be display at FDU Library from Monday to Thursday, 8:30 a.m. - 11 p.m., Friday, 8:30 a.m.- 5 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Sunday, 2 - 10 p.m. The Library is located at 285 Madison Avenue. The exhibit is free and open to the public. For more information call 973-443-8515 or x8516.



November 16-28, 2009 - Kimberley, Nottingham
For decades, the threat of the Cold War hung over the Western world. But with the collapse of the Soviet Union 18 years ago came the end of one of the 20th century's most tense political conflicts. Historian Roger Grimes has now, however, found out more about just what went on behind the Iron Curtain. Mr Grimes, 66, of Kimberley, has compiled a collection of former Soviet military maps, which for the first time make public details of Soviet Cold War target sites across Nottingham. The maps been discovered in Latvia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and now are on display at Kimberley Library, Main Street. For more information, call the library on 0115 938 2322.



November 19, 2009 - December 4, 2009 - Merced, California
The city of Merced said the first floor gallery of the Merced Civic Center is filled with maps of crime incidents, maps of park locations and aerial maps showing how Merced has changed from 1999 through 2008. All of them are part of a display to celebrate Geography Awareness Week and to illustrate that maps have many more uses than just showing how to get from here to there. The gallery features maps from numerous city and Merced County departments and other agencies in Merced County. Its open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during regular business days. It also is open when the City Council and other agencies have night meetings. The Merced Civic Center is located at 678 W. 18th St. For more information on the Map Gallery, contact RuthAnne Harbison at (209) 385-5789.



December 2, 2009 - June 2, 2010 - Baton Rouge, Louisiana
CARTE Museum (Cartographic Acquisition, Research, Teaching & Exhibition Museum) will open December 2, 2009. Located near the Louisiana State University campus, the museum will feature maps, books, views and atlases depicting the cartography of the Gulf South, and political and geographic development of the United States. The museum is a non-profit entity and open to anyone wishing to do map research or view current exhibits. The first show will be Finding the Mississippi a display of significant maps depicting the lower Mississippi and its juncture with the Gulf of Mexico from 1513 to 1764. The inaugural exhibit can be viewed at the opening on December 2 at 6PM. The museum is located at 2347 Christian Street, phone 225 387-6119.



March 13, 2010 - June 13, 2010 - London
Picturing Britain: Paul Sandby is a major exhibition of the work of the artist and topographical draughtsman Paul Sandby (1731-1809) at the Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington House, Piccadilly. Commemorating the bicentenary of his death, this is the first exhibition devoted to this pioneering figure in the development of British landscape painting and topographical drawing, and it includes works from the Royal Collection, National Library of Scotland, Yale Centre for British Art, and the British Museum. . Sandby was appointed chief draughtsman to the Roy Military Survey in 1747. Although he was an artist well-versed in continental traditions, his early employment as a map-maker and topographical draughtsman led him to produce carefully observed and composed views of the native British landscape, including scenes taken in and around London, or on extensive tours through England, Wales and Scotland. A richly illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition.



April 20, 2010 - September 10, 2010 - London
An exhibition at the British Library, Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art, which will be accompanied by a book, will display some of the masterpieces of cartography from the middle ages to the present day, several of which have never been shown before. It will try to recreate the settings for which the maps were originally intended and thereby demonstrate the important role that maps played as works of art and as instruments of propaganda in the broader culture of their times. Visitors will be shown rooms from a palace, the home of a merchant/landowner, a class-room and a secretary of state's office. Nor will the open-air display of maps and globes be ignored. While the emphasis will be on the early modern period in Europe, there will be exhibits from throughout the world, which will extend from medieval times to the modern day including contemporary works by Grayson Perry and Stephen Walters'.


Last Updated on November 18, 2009 by John W. Docktor