Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions

On view June 26 – October 4, 2026

The Morgan Library & Museum presents Tarot! Renaissance Symbols, Modern Visions, an exhibition in two parts that explores the origins of tarot in Renaissance Italy and its contemporary relevance as an enduring source of inspiration for twentieth- and twenty-first-century artists. The first part, Renaissance Symbols, focuses on the earliest surviving tarot decks from the fifteenth century, examining the rich court culture from which the cards emerged, the development of the cards’ imagery, and how that imagery became the basis for later divination practices. The second part, Modern Visions, traces artists’ engagement with tarot imagery during four distinct historical moments in which the occult assumed greater prominence within the larger culture, culminating in a new commission by renowned contemporary artist Chris Ofili.

The exhibition will be on view from June 26 through October 4, 2026.

Modern Visions

Modern Visions examines four periods across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—the British Occult Revival, Surrealism, the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and the contemporary moment of the last ten years.

This part of the exhibition begins with “The British Occult Revival” and the 1909 Rider-Waite-Smith deck, conceived by mystic Arthur Edward Waite and illustrated by artist Pamela Colman Smith. The deck incorporates an extraordinary range of visual references, both from early twentieth-century British culture and from historical sources like the Tarot de Marseille and Renaissance decks. Smith democratized tarot by providing illustrations for each card, rather than just the twenty-two Major Arcana, as was typical. Modern Visions also features other critical figures of the British Occult Revival, including Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris, who created the 1930s hand-painted Thoth Tarot cards, along with lesser-known personages such as writer and artist Austin Osman Spare, whose deck, created circa 1906, was only recently discovered.

With the dissemination of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, tarot became firmly entrenched in the popular imagination, and its influence can be seen in later practitioners including major artistic figures like Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Betye Saar.

“Surrealism” explores that movement’s growing interest in magic and the occult against the backdrop of artists’ disillusionment with government institutions and the rise of fascism in Europe. André Breton and his circle are examined, as are artists like Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, who saw tarot as an alternative to patriarchal structures.