Exhibits

Ellen and Leonard Milberg Gallery, Firestone Library

“Nursery of Rebellion”: Princeton & the American Revolution

Drawing on an array of PUL’s manuscript and rare book collections, this exhibition commemorates the 250th anniversaries of U.S. independence and the Battle of Princeton, and showcases Princeton’s archival treasures from the revolutionary era alongside documents and artifacts that reveal local experiences of the American Revolution on campus and in the surrounding communities. The exhibition is curated by Michael Blaakman, Associate Professor of History, and Gabriel Swift, Librarian for Early American Collections.

Thursday and Friday, 10:00 AM-8:00 PM, Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 AM-6:00 PM.

Guided, curatorial tours available on Thursday, May 21 at 5:00PM and Friday, May 21 at 11:00AM and 3:30PM.

Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library

“Real and Remembered: Princetonians Caught Between Study and Revolution”

Even before the American Revolution directly impacted campus life–with Nassau Hall occupied, classes disrupted, and students leaving to fight–Princeton had become a center of revolutionary thought and youthful activism. The Revolution was a key part of institutional identity and school spirit. This exhibition–opening in time for Reunions 2026–highlights both the real and remembered Revolution at Princeton, 250 years later.

Curated by Ashley Augustyniak, Reference Services Coordinator – Special Collections Mudd and Library Collections Specialists, April Armstrong *14 and Rosalba Varallo Recchia.

Open Thursday and Friday, 9:00 AM-4:45 PM.

Tiger Tea Room, Firestone Library

“Living Forever: The Archive of The Great Gatsby”

Through large-scale reproductions, a variety of items that trace the creation, reception, and impact of “The Great Gatsby” around the world are featured. Included are copies of the earliest surviving draft of the novel with edits by Maxwell Perkins, covers of the book from foreign editions, and borrower cards from Sylvia Beach’s bookshop and lending library, Shakespeare and Co.

The cafe space is open during regular Firestone Library hours. Service hours vary.

Cotsen Children’s Library

With fairytale-inspired décor and a treehouse for reading, the Cotsen Children’s Library is a great place for your little ones to play and cool off during Reunions. Stop by to visit a very special typewriter “petting zoo” or color a historical illustration straight from the Cotsen special collection.

The library is located on the main floor of Princeton University’s Firestone Library and will be open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday. The library will be closed on Sunday. For safety purposes, while visiting Cotsen, children must remain in the care and custody of their parent/legal guardian at all times.

Open Thursday 10:00 AM-3:00 PM, Friday 10:00AM-5:00PM and Saturday 10:00AM-2:00PM

Bainbridge House, 158 Nassau Street

Faig Ahmed: Textiles of Consciousness

An invitation to encounter the elaborate sculptural textiles of Faig Ahmed in the intimate space at Art@Bainbridge

Faig Ahmed’s work is a contemporary take on the textile traditions of his native Azerbaijan. Beginning from the understanding that textiles join families and societies through their patterned stories, Ahmed’s practice experiments with the role of carpets in Azerbaijani social and cultural history. The pixelated aesthetics that emerge in his large-scale works confound our cognitive and sensory expectations of craft-based textiles. Textiles of Consciousness moves beyond the meeting ground for historical practices and contemporary digital aesthetics inherent in Faig’s work. We invite you to feel—not just to think about—how the artist blurs the boundaries between sensation and perception, and by extension of collective consciousness, through the textures and visual glitches, drips, and fluffs found in his textiles.

Open Thursday–Friday 10 AM–8 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM and Sunday 12–5 PM

Princeton University Art Museum

Photography as a Way of Life: Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan

Photography as a Way of Life examines the careers of Minor White, Aaron Siskind, and Harry Callahan—influential photographers, teachers, and thinkers in the United States in the mid-twentieth century—and traces their impact on the field of photography. Training and inspiring makers through courses, workshops, exhibitions, magazines, and photobooks, these artists built a devoted audience for their work while shaping the aspirations of their era.

Amid exploding markets for Kodak’s snapshots and Magnum’s decisive moments, White, Siskind, and Callahan shared inclinations toward abstraction and toward deeply personal photographs. Seeking to carve out a new role and status for art photography, just as a new crop of photography programs were emerging within higher education, they established themselves as icons among the first generation of college-level photography teachers.

Drawing on the rich photography holdings of the Princeton University Art Museum and its Minor White Archive, this exhibition brings together iconic and previously unpublished color and black-and-white prints, rarely seen slides, and an array of published and archival materials that illuminate a vision of making a living and shaping a life through photography.

Open Thursday–Friday 10 AM–8 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM and Sunday 12–5 PM

What Photographs Look Like

Photographs today are often thought of as images, not objects—representations that circulate widely and effortlessly, appearing on our devices without clear origins or destinations. For much of the history of photography, however, photographs were physical objects meant to be held, treasured, traded, or displayed in albums.

The phrase “What Photographs Look Like” is borrowed from Peter Bunnell, who was hired by Princeton in 1972 as the first endowed professor of the history of photography in the United States, and who later served twice as director of the Museum. Bunnell used the phrase to upend his students’ expectations of photographs as strictly two-dimensional prints and to invite delight in the expansive nature of the medium, from photographic drawings to malleable photo-sculptures.

Photography continues to adapt and evolve today. The collections-based exhibition “What Photographs Look Like” underscores the medium’s enduring ability to surprise.

Open Thursday–Friday 10 AM–8 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM and Sunday 12–5 PM

Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay

Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay presents the work of the groundbreaking ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu (1922–2011), who taught at Princeton University for almost three decades.

Drawing from the Museum’s deep holdings of Takaezu’s ceramics, Dialogues in Clay explores the artist’s experimental practice, including her signature “closed” forms and painterly glazing. Placing Takaezu’s sculptures in conversation with the work of her teachers and contemporaries who embarked on parallel pathways of innovation—including Helen Frankenthaler, Maija Grotell, Robert Motherwell, Isamu Noguchi, Lenore Tawney, and Peter Voulkos—alongside reflections by her students, the exhibition positions Takaezu as one of the most important ceramic artists of the twentieth century.

Open Thursday–Friday 10 AM–8 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM and Sunday 12–5 PM

Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50

Willem de Kooning: The Breakthrough Years, 1945–50 traces the development of de Kooning’s approach to painting in the period when he cemented his position as a leader of the American avant-garde.

Anchored by works from de Kooning’s first solo exhibition, held in 1948, including Black Friday—a highlight in Princeton’s collections—as well as paintings from more than a dozen museums and private collections, The Breakthrough Years is the first exhibition to focus on the enormously generative and creative period that surrounded de Kooning’s full-scale debut in the New York art world. During this time, de Kooning refined the exchange in his work between figuration and abstraction through experimentation, resulting in compositions that are among his most celebrated. The Breakthrough Years offers a rare opportunity to study a defining moment in the career of an artist who fundamentally redefined painting in the twentieth century to become one of modernism’s foundational representatives.

Open Thursday–Friday 10 AM–8 PM, Saturday 10 AM–5 PM and Sunday 12–5 PM

Frist Campus Center

Mental Health Exhibition @ Reunions 2026

“One Too Many: Stories of Princetonian Humanity and Mental Health” is a cross-generational exhibition hosted by the Alumni Mental Health Coalition to bring together alumni and current students to share lived experiences of mental health at Princeton and beyond. In collaboration with the Undergraduate Student Government’s Mental Health Committee, this exhibition highlights stories across mediums — audio, writing, visual art and live performances — to foster community, reflection and connection. Grounded in the One Too Many student campaign, the project aims to create resonance across generations while advocating for more responsive and compassionate approaches to student well-being.

Featuring The Princeton Footnotes and Old NasSoul

Sponsored by the Princeton Alumni Mental Health Coalition and the USG Mental Health Committee

May 21 – 24. Opening ceremony Friday, May 22 at 3:30 PM.