Friends Who Came to See Me: Drawings from John Ashbery's Collection

In 2019, the Morgan received a donation of some twenty-five works on paper from the collection of American poet John Ashbery (1927–2017) from his husband, David Kermani. These works form the core of this exhibition devoted to Ashbery and his artist friends, including James Bishop, Joe Brainard, Jane Freilicher, Jean Hélion, Fairfield Porter, and Larry Rivers. The selection includes eight portraits of Ashbery and one of the very first collages he created as a Harvard student in the late 1940s.