New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Launches Exhibit on History of Magic Performance

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, located at Lincoln Center, has announced a new exhibition highlighting the history of magic performance. The exhibition, Mystery and Wonder: A Legacy of Golden Age Magicians in New York City highlights rich and historic archival materials from the Billy Rose Theatre Division collection, all related to the art of magic and the fascinating lives of magicians performing in New York City throughout what is known as the Golden Age of Magic. The exhibition opens February 12, 2026 and closes July 11, 2026. 

The exhibition, curated by Annemarie van Roessel, the assistant curator of the Billy Rose Theatre Division, will showcase more than 300 rare items, including a selection of books, photographs, and objects from the magic collection of Dr. Saram Ellison, co-founder of the Society of American Magicians, and important books and artifacts that evoke an early 20th-century magic shop and the history of magic shops in New York City. Photographs, programs, correspondence, ephemera, and posters will highlight the extraordinary careers of lauded magicians such as Harry Houdini, Harry Kellar, Alexander and Adelaide Herrmann, Howard Thurston and others.

Highlights of the exhibition will include:

• Selections from Dr. Saram R. Ellison's rare book library from the 18th century through the 1910s, including the first book on magic published in the United States

• Selections from Dr. Ellison’s Collection of Magicians’ Wands—more than 40 wands used by the most famous magicians of the late-19th and early 20th centuries

• Early documents, publications and photographs from the Society of American Magicians

• Rare photographs of magicians in performance and behind the scenes, including trick photography

• 48 rare and one-of-a-kind original lithograph posters

• Magic tricks and props from the early 20th century

The Golden Age of Magic—a distinctly vital period from the 1870s to the 1930s—was especially rooted in New York City, home to an international community of talented and ambitious magicians who were becoming mainstream professional entertainers and forging important relationships with each other. These men and women built enthusiastic audiences by touring to small towns on the vaudeville circuits and commanding theatrical stages in major cities across the globe. They also embraced new technology and new media. Magic performance in this period was also deeply intertwined with the traditions of spiritualism, vaudeville, circus, and mainstream theater, and innovations in publishing, science, and technology were also major influences. Throughout this era, New York remained the center of the magic world in the United States, the locus of knowledge, accomplishment, recognition, and marvelous ingenuity. 

The exhibition explores how magic knowledge was passed down through communities and lineages of magicians within an evolving cultural and social context. At the Library for the Performing Arts, magic has taken its rightful place alongside theatre, dance, film, and music for more than 100 years. The New York Public Library’s collection of materials documenting the history of magic is the largest in any public library in the United States.