Know-How for a New Era: City Living/City Learning, Circa 1400-1550

The Hunter College Art Galleries are pleased to present Know-How for a New Era: City Living/City Learning, circa 1400-1550, an exhibition that showcases over fifty illustrated books, images, and objects that capture the dynamism of city living and intellectual life between roughly 1400 and 1550 in northern Europe.

The century-and-a-half covered in the show was an era of rapid change—social, technological, economic, intellectual, and artistic. In this period, lay people claimed the city as their own, often outright dismissing the authority of the Church. They amassed great wealth through entrepreneurship and global trade and orchestrated a dynamic intervention into governance.

The show focuses on illuminated manuscripts and printed books commissioned by the newly rich and is organized around five themes: City Living; Travel and Astronomy; Technology and Labor; Home Life and Leisure; and Health: Living and Dying Well. The volumes taught fundamentals for self-care, medicine, and natural history. They flaunted both knowledge of antiquity and excitement for navigation and technology. They celebrated relationships and home life with images and objects depicting games, music, and dance.

Public programming features academic lectures and workshops related to crafts—including perfume production, spinning, and printmaking.

Lenders include: The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY; The New York Public Library, New York, NY; The New York Academy of Medicine Library, New York, NY; Princeton University Library, Princeton, NJ; University of Pennsylvania Library, Kislak Special Collections, Philadelphia, PA; The Free Library of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA; Les Enluminures Gallery, Paris and Chicago; and Private Collections.

Curated by Cynthia Hahn (Distinguished Professor, Hunter College and the CUNY Grad Center) and Nina Rowe (John L. Marion Professor, Fordham University), with Harper Montgomery, Susan and David Bershad Professor of Art History & Director of the Hunter College Art Galleries, and MA, MFA, and PhD students at Hunter and CUNY Grad, including those enrolled in the Advanced Curatorial Certificate Seminar. Curatorial fellows: Cole Ashby, Emily Da Silva-Prado, Julia Smart, and Elizabeth Wickersham.