Organized by The Field Museum and the Newberry Library, Chicago, this special exhibition will be the most ambitious American exhibition devoted to maps since the great show mounted in Baltimore more than 50 years ago. Visitors will come face-to-face with some of the world’s greatest cartographic treasures, not only maps made by great cartographers of the Middle Ages and the age of exploration, but also seldom-seen and exciting artifacts from around the world that will broaden visitors’ knowledge of the almost universal human activity of map-making. The exhibition will feature a variety of unique, rare, and often beautiful artifacts, including maps on cuneiform tablets, medieval maps, manuscript maps of explorers, globes, maps of areas all around the earth, and maps of nowhere: utopias and imaginary maps. Highlights include three maps by Leonardo da Vinci, J. R. R. Tolkien’s map of Minas Tirith, and Thomas Jefferson’s map of the proposed contours of the states of the Union.
Baltimore will host a Festival of Maps in conjunction with the Walters’ maps show.
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is on view March 16– June 8, 2008. This exhibition is organized by the Field Museum and The Newberry Library. Presented by Navteq.
Maps: Finding Our Place in the World is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The exhibition at the Walters Art Museum is made possible by the generosity of an anonymous donor. Additional support is provided by Signal Hill, a Contributing Sponsor, and Mr. and Mrs. John R. Rockwell.