“The notion of the figurative takes on a new meaning when the organic merges with the synthetic to depict the body as something unfixed, malleable, and remote.” – Ruba Katrib,

The Morgan Library &Museum’s exhibition Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth feels like the missing piece of the Tolkien puzzle. Collecting a mass of his visual material together, the exhibition emphasizes that Tolkien’s holistic approach to his invented world went farther than map making. His illustrations draw from the same well as his writing and language creation, and complete the fantasy-fiction-as-historical-text that draws so many to Tolkien’s world.