The Magic of Handwriting: Pedro Corrêa do Lago’s Collection on Display

Handwriting operates a magic: it transports us back to defining moments in history, creativity, and a century. Brazilian author and editor Pedro Corrêa do Lago (photo) has assembled one of the most comprehensive autograph collections of our era, acquiring thousands of handwritten letters, manuscripts, and musical compositions, as well as inscribed photographs, drawings, and documents. This exhibition — the first drawn from his extraordinary collection — features around 140 items, including letters from Lucrezia Borgia, Vincent van Gogh, and Emily Dickinson, annotated sketches by Michelangelo, Jean Cocteau, and Charlie Chaplin, and manuscripts by Giacomo Puccini, Jorge Luis Borges, and Marcel Proust.Instead of focusing on a single figure, era, or subject, Corrêa do Lago made the ambitious decision to seek significant examples across six broad areas of human endeavor — art, history, literature, science, music, and entertainment — spanning nearly nine hundred years. From a document dated 1153 signed by four medieval popes to a 2006 fingerprint signature by physicist Stephen Hawking, the items on display convey the power of handwriting to connect us with writers, artists, composers, political figures, performers, explorers, scientists, philosophers, rebels, and others whose actions and creations have made them legends. The collection will be on display at The Morgan Library, NYC until September 16, 2018.