From the weekly shopping list to the Ten Commandments, our lives are full of lists — some dashed off quickly, others beautifully illustrated, all providing insight into the personalities and habits of their makers. An exhibition at The Morgan Library &  Museum celebrates this most common form of documentation by presenting an array of lists made by a broad range of artists, from Pablo Picasso and Alexander Calder to H. L. Mencken, Eero Saarinen, Elaine de Kooning, and Lee Krasner. Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists’ Enumerations from the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art is on view through October 2.

With examples such as Picasso’s picks for the great artists of his age (Gris, Léger, etc.), H. L. Mencken’s autobiographical facts (“I never have a head-ache from drink”), and Robert Smithson’s collection of quotations about spirals, the items on view are intriguing, revealing, humorous, and poignant.

The exhibition, which is organized by the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, presents some eighty lists, including “to-dos,” paintings sold, appointments made and met, supplies to get and places to see, and people who are “in.” Some documents are historically important, throwing light on a moment, movement, or event; others are private, providing an intimate view of an artist’s personal life. Eero Saarinen, for example, enumerated the good qualities of The New York Times art editor and critic Aline Bernstein, his soon-to-be second wife. Oscar Bluemner crafted lists of color combinations for a single painting. Picasso itemized his recommendations for the ground-breaking 1913 Armory show, and Grant Wood listed previous economic depressions, perhaps with the hope that the Great Depression would soon end.

“This exhibition provides a revealing glimpse into the everyday world of great artists by presenting items of the most common type,” said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. “Lists are both practical and personal. They record momentary working concerns, while also offering insight into an artist’s private observations and recollections. They provide biographical context and reveal details about personal taste and opinion.”

Sculptor Alexander Calder lived in Paris from 1926 to 1933. He kept an address list of his French connections in his handmade address book. On view in the exhibition are multiple pages, which include contact information for Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, German photographer Ilse Bing, and American composer George Antheil, among others.

Perhaps the most famous list is Pablo Picasso’s recommendations for the 1913 Armory Show, the first international exhibition of Modern art in the United States. He names Marcel Duchamp, whose Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) would cause an uproar in the American press, Fernand Léger, and the Spaniard Juan Gris as candidates to be included in the exhibition. All would later become modern masters.

On a different level, lists can be task oriented. Jeweler Margaret De Patta kept a list of orders for her Modernist creations — rings, earrings, pins, pendants, bracelets  — with the name of the piece and purchaser.

She obviously derived great satisfaction from finishing projects: when she completed an order, she crossed off the name of the buyer and the item, transforming her to-do list into a done list. Artist N. C. Wyeth made a list of the titles of the watercolors created by his son, Andrew, for the latter’s first one-person gallery show in New York.

Lists also tell us what we have done or what we hope to do. Artist Janice Lowry’s elaborate illustrated journals are peppered with to-do lists. The recurrent tasks (pay bills, make doctor’s appointment) are interspersed with her dream recollections and random thoughts, each page thick with collaged images, stamps, and stickers —a vivid backdrop for her daily tours.

Pages: 1 · 2