What started as a hobby for a non-smoking tobacco magnate and race car enthusiast, evolved into one of the most extraordinary collections of rare books and manuscripts housed at The New York Public Library. Arents also collected botanical prints of tobacco plants, portraits and caricatures of individuals where cigars and pipes were used as props, artistic compositions where burning tobacco and fumes were portrayed, posters, cigar box label art, cigarette cards, and other images somehow related to tobacco.
Admission is free.
Tobacco Leaves is divided into three categories of images displaying commercial art, works of fine art, and works reflecting culture and society. The connection to tobacco is clear in a series of photographs on view that portray smoking artists, writers, and musicians such as Peggy Lee and Bob Dylan. George Arents, Jr. Advised by an uncle to develop as many interests as possible, George Arents decided to pursue book collecting. In 1941, Arents told members of Manhattan's Grolier Club, that although it is impossible to print on tobacco leaves, the plant nonetheless makes up a great many of the leaves of literature. The pursuit of those literary, and artistic, tobacco leaves was for him a lifelong endeavor.