Museum Showcases Monarch Butterfly Drawings in Corridor
Peter Kuper's wall-size monarch artwork fills a corridor in the Richard Gilder Center at the American Museum of Natural History.
Updated on Nov. 1, 2026 in Fine Art
The American Museum of Natural History opened Monarch's Journey, an exhibition by artist Peter Kuper that fills a corridor in the Richard Gilder Center for Science, Education, and Innovation with drawings of monarch butterflies. Kuper scaled his drawings into wall-size graphics to create an immersive version of the monarch migration.
Why it matters
The exhibition brings the monarch migration to New York visitors through large-scale art rather than field observation. It connects a visual artist's long engagement with the butterflies to a major science museum's public programming.
Tens of millions of monarch butterflies migrate to forests in Michoacán, Mexico, each fall, according to the exhibition's subject matter. The source does not provide the exhibition's run dates, ticket pricing, or number of drawings on display.
The players
Peter Kuper
Peter Kuper is an American cartoonist and illustrator known for graphic novels and political satire, whose monarch-themed works span more than a decade.
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History is a major science and natural history museum located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.
The details
Kuper's drawings include a lone butterfly traversing power plants, strip mines, and the New Jersey Turnpike, rendered in shades of blue. He visited the roosting monarchs in Michoacán in 2007 and has since produced earlier monarch-themed works including Diario de Oaxaca (2009), Ruins (2015), and Insectopolis (2025).
Timeline
Every fall: tens of millions of monarchs migrate to Michoacán forests, Mexico.
2007: Kuper visits roosting monarchs in Michoacán.
2009: Kuper publishes Diario de Oaxaca.
2015: Kuper publishes graphic novel Ruins.
2025: Kuper publishes Insectopolis.
Season Trajectory
The exhibition extends Peter Kuper's monarch-themed body of work, which includes Diario de Oaxaca (2009), Ruins (2015), and Insectopolis (2025). Moving that work into a science museum corridor places it alongside the museum's natural history collections rather than in a traditional gallery.
Visitors to the American Museum of Natural History can view Monarch's Journey in the Richard Gilder Center corridor. The source does not state admission details or the exhibition's closing date.
The takeaway
Large-scale artwork can convey the scale of natural phenomena that are hard to witness directly, and Kuper's sustained focus on monarchs shows how one subject can anchor a body of work over many years.
Further reading
Explore more Fine Art coverage from New York City.
Source note: This article includes information reported by The New York Times.
