Public Exhibitions

As a Grolier Club curator, you are joining an august group of collectors, scholars, library and museum professionals in contributing to the Grolier Club’s long and distinguished tradition of scholarly exhibitions. In anticipation of your planning, this website contains detailed information on the Grolier Club's public exhibition program for your reference, organized in relative order of expected deadlines, including how to propose and exhibition, sample label copy, diagrams and dimensions of the cases, details on exhibition graphics, and sample press materials. You may find it helpful to consult our Flickr page for examples of exhibitions that have been mounted in the past few years. These images will give you a sense of the number of items the cases can accommodate as well as possibilities for their display. We will provide a customized timeline for your exhibition, and you can see a template version in the Timelines page. 

Organizing and installing an exhibition at the Grolier Club is a complex task that requires the time, talent, and efforts of many people: the curator, lenders to the exhibition, printers, designers, as well as Grolier Club staff and skilled member volunteers. Upon acceptance of your proposal, we will host a launch meeting with the Curator(s), Director of Exhibitions, Chair of the Public Exhibitions Committee, Chair of Publications Committee, and Publications Manager to introduce each of our staff members, establish clear communication channels, and explain how we will guide the exhibition and publication development process. We will touch base with you periodically as we approach your exhibition period to offer resources and guidance. When laying the foundations for your exhibition, be sure to discuss as many logistical aspects with these members of the Grolier Club’s staff as possible, covering deadlines, catalogue preparation, budget allocations and, in the case of group projects, the specifics of each curator’s respective areas of responsibility. 

Please be aware that any catalogue accompanying Grolier exhibitions that bears the Grolier Club imprint must be produced in close conjunction with the Grolier Club’s Publications Committee and its Chairperson, Marie Oedel (marie@bookartisan.com).

It is expected that curators will work with our Events Manager to develop related programming to support the exhibition, such as lectures, tours, panel discussions, readings, film screenings, etc. The Club will provide the use of the Exhibition Hall gratis for any activities related to the exhibition. As curator, it is expected that you will identify any speakers or other participants, and Grolier Club staff will work with you on the logistics of arranging the event.

I am delighted that you will curate a Grolier Club exhibition and we all look forward to working with you. Please feel free to call (212-838-6690 ext. 4) or e-mail me (sbuchsbaum@grolierclub.org) if I can be of any assistance.

With kind regards,

Shira Buchsbaum
The Susan Jaffe Tane Director of Exhibitions