National Library Timeline | David Polonsky

David Polonsky, b. 1973
National Library Timeline, 2024

Print on aluminum plate

A gift from the craftsman

The Russell Berrie Entrance Hall, floor -2

The timeline presents key events in the history of the National Library inspired by photographs and items from its collections. Woven into the chronicles of the Library is the story of an imaginary small blue book.

The work was inspired by timelines of the ancient world: paintings and reliefs that adorned stelae and triumphal monuments and presented the story of events through images. The National Library timeline remains faithful to the qualities of the ancient pictographic language: the size of the figures signifies their importance, the illustrations tend toward flattening of the forms, and the progression of the imagery creates a narrative text.

The printing was done in dark brown on a gold-hued aluminum plate. The appearance of the images against the bright metal evokes the technique of etching in stone whose purpose is to leave a mark for future generations.