Past Hirsch Exhibitions

October 9, 2025–January 24, 2026

Flashpoint! Protest Photography in Print, 1950–Present is a reading room exhibition focusing on global protest photography in print through photobooks, zines, posters, pamphlets, independent journals, and alternative newspapers that address protest and resistance from the 1950s on. Since its inception, photography has captured key historical moments and served as both a tool and a document of political protest. By placing photobooks in conversation with posters, DIY zines, and independent journals, Flashpoint! explores the diverse roles and aesthetics of the medium in its support of protest and resistance.

This hands-on reading room was organized by 10×10 Photobooks, a nonprofit organization that fosters engagement with the global photobook community. 

On-site
Hirsch Library is located on the lower level of the Beck Building.

December 18, 2024 –April 19, 2025

This exhibition brings together works from both the MFAH art collections and the Hirsch Library special collections to trace the broad range of artistic expression provided by the sketchbook. Private Pages includes original copies of artists’ sketchbooks, special-edition facsimiles that show the smallest torn page and stray mark, and finished books centered around the aesthetics of sketches and preliminary artistic endeavors.

Works of art—especially those experienced in a gallery or museum setting—exist not just on their own, but also in relationship to a viewer or audience. In contrast, the artist’s sketchbook has always been a space not only for honing skills and producing studies for future works, but also an area for working on concepts and ideas without considering an audience at all.

Online
View the virtual edition of Private Pages: Sketchbooks and the Artistic Process.

August 21–December 14, 2024

Over the course of the 20th century, artists such as David Hockney, Lois Mailou Jones, and Diego Rivera, best recognized for their work in other media, have frequently employed their skills to illustrate children’s books. Each of the nine publications featured here exhibits a dynamic interaction between the author’s words and the artist’s imagery with a global reach that extends to England, France, Italy, Mexico, the United States, and Uruguay. While the styles vary widely from Cubist to Expressionist to Pointillist and beyond, the unifying element is a sense of playfulness crafted to edify and delight young readers—not to mention adults.

This exhibition, culled from the Hirsch Library’s rare book collection, overlaps with a related installation mounted at the Kitty King Powell Library and Study Center at Bayou Bend, The Good Child’s Library: 19th-Century American Children’s Publications from the Hirsch and Powell Rare Collections, on view through October 19, 2024.

Online
View the virtual edition of Child’s Play: Artists as Children’s Book Illustrators.

March 13–August 17, 2024

For more than 50 years Bea Nettles has mined her memory and vivid imagination to create photographic narratives that are deeply personal, and yet, universal in nature. From the outset her works have taken the form of photobooks that merge image and text, addressing subjects as diverse as mythmaking, autobiography, and relations with the natural world. Works from a feminine perspective ran counter to the largely male-dominated photobook world that began to develop in the 1960s and 1970s. Not one to be deterred by tradition or expectation, Nettles explored the potential for publications that embraced a more intimate and introspective sensibility, forging a trail for others in her wake.

The Hirsch Library recently acquired more than 50 photographically illustrated books directly from the artist, making for one of the most substantial collections of Nettles’s work. Featured here are 14 publications representing the full range of this singular figure in the field of photobook making.

Online
View the virtual edition of Bea Nettles: Myth Maker, Storyteller.

November 1, 2023–March 9, 2024

The work of Edward Gorey has been seen in books across various genres, illustrated on posters for ballets, constructed on stage for Broadway productions, and featured on public television for more than seven decades. The many different styles of Gorey’s book illustrations, for which he is best known, represent his morbid, yet fascinating way of looking at the world. His drawings feature a plethora of subjects: odd figures in ominous landscapes, quirky people in humorous situations, gothic houses filled with skeletons and ghosts, alien machines burning people alive, naughty children torturing animals, and character after character meeting an untimely end.

Yet Gorey (1925–2000) draws in such a way that, no matter how odd or grotesque, every scene is filled with intrigue and wonder. From his early days illustrating the work of other authors, through years of settling into his own style and authorial voice, to his later years experimenting with color as well as format, this exhibition spans his decades-long career and highlights his always-evolving nature as an artist. 

Online
View the virtual edition of The Gorgeous and the Grotesque.

July 12–October 28, 2023

Publishing in 19th-century America mirrored the nation’s ambitions as the country sought to fulfill its Manifest Destiny. Volumes depicting uncharted flora and fauna were among the genres that caught the public’s imagination and found a welcome market.

Colorplate books featuring birds yielded some of the most spectacular publications, with the octavo edition of The Birds of America by John James Audubon serving as the high-water mark. Audubon’s publication and similar illustrated books helped to expand awareness of birds to elite buyers of expensive volumes. More-modest publications reached a wide audience: middle-class readers, scientists, political leaders, and even children. 

Birdwatching by the Book features 11 publications culled from the Hirsch Library and Powell Library that reveal American bird illustration at its apex. These books expanded awareness to a nation keen for a better understanding and appreciation of its avian neighbors.

Online
View the virtual edition of Birdwatching by the Book.

See the library catalog listing for the books and periodicals included in the exhibition.

January 11–July 8, 2023

Over the past 25 years, New York–based artist Dan Walsh has incorporated book production into his artistic practice, receiving wide acclaim for his virtuosic and playful artist’s books. Walsh (born 1960) works within the minimalist tradition, which is often characterized as cold and austere. However, he brings a warmth to his productions by exposing his process and the variations created by the human hand. Subtle imperfections play out on the pages of his books in the form of irregularities of line, brushstroke, and coloration.

Ultimately, Walsh challenges himself and the viewer to remain present by focusing on minute details while remaining open to the broader possibilities within a highly controlled environment. The nine books on view in Minimalist at Play feature Walsh’s adept skills through a range of media including watercolor, acrylic, ink, and pencil, as well as technical processes such as woodcut printing, cut paper, and bookbinding.

Online
View the virtual edition of Dan Walsh: Minimalist at Play.

See the library catalog listing for the books and periodicals included in the exhibition.

September 21, 2022–January 7, 2023

Nearly since the inception of books and manuscripts, artists and creators have treated written or printed materials as pliable and changeable objects and forms. Medieval marginal notes and experimentation gave way to processes such as erasure and collage, the main idea being that in the right hands printed matter is never a “finished” product, but rather a stepping stone toward further creation and experimentation. 

Each of the artists in this exhibition has taken an existing book or set of print materials and fundamentally altered and changed it to suit particular purposes, at times creating entirely new narratives and visual language or destroying original meaning and function altogether to create conceptual art objects completely “unreadable” in the traditional sense. Published novels, hardware catalogues, and personal ads are all fair game to be absorbed, reconfigured, and metamorphosed into completely new expressions of artistic intention.

Online
The See the library catalog listing for the books and periodicals included in the exhibition.

November 3, 2021–March 12, 2022

Cards are a part of the human experience all over the world in myriad ways, including for pleasure, divination, and gambling. This exhibition explores how artists have used cards in modern and contemporary art over the past 70 years. The selections are divided into three categories: functional cards, tarot decks, and documentation. The functional examples include baseball cards, playing cards, postcards, and construction toys. The tarot decks feature imagery from art history, astrology, and contemporary photography. Representing documentation are exhibition catalogues and loose-card artists’ books.

The objects in Not Playing Around were created to be used and interacted with, which flips the usual dynamic between art and viewer. The juxtaposition of elements that typically would not be compared leads to new interpretations. Although each artist approached the format in a different way, the exhibition illustrates how cards can represent artistic intention outside traditional means and showcases the interconnections between artists across time and locations.

Online
View the virtual edition of Not Playing Around: The Unconventional Use of the Card in Modern and Contemporary Art.

July 14–October 30, 2021

Spanning nearly 400 years, Bookbinding Uncovered explores the history of the book through the production process, techniques, and materials. Bookbinding materials illustrate the progression of technological advances, from the use of animal skins for producing vellum bindings to the application of synthetic fabrics made of PVC. Materials begin to tell a story about a book’s contents and provenance, as in Vocabulario y Refranero Criollo, featuring a cowhide binding with a branded title.

Many embellishments familiar today, such as marbled paper, gold, and striped headbands, are imitations of historical bookbinding techniques created by skilled artisans centuries ago. Identifying materials and techniques is essential to understanding not only the history of the book, but also tastes of a particular period or culture.

Fore-edge painting and miniature bindings are labor-intensive techniques that showcase technical achievement and serve a functional purpose, such as determining ownership or concealing information. Artists’ books with truly inspired bindings, such as those by Robert The and Dan Walsh, underscore that exceptional bookbinding also serves as an important medium for artistic expression.

Online
View the virtual edition of Bookbinding Uncovered: Materials, Techniques, and Artistic Expression.