Belle da Costa Greene died in New York City on May 26, 1950, at age 66, having led the Morgan Library for over three decades.
Belle da Costa Greene died on May 26, 1950, in New York City at the age of 66. By the time of her death, she had spent more than four decades shaping one of the world's great cultural institutions, first as personal librarian to financier J. Pierpont Morgan beginning in 1905, and then, after Morgan's death in 1913, as the founding director of the Pierpont Morgan Library when it became a public institution in 1924.
Greene's death marked the end of an era for the Morgan Library, which she had transformed from a private collector's trove into one of the foremost research libraries and museums for rare manuscripts, incunabula, and works of art in the world. Under her leadership, the library acquired an extraordinary array of illuminated manuscripts, early printed books, and literary and musical manuscripts, cementing its international reputation.
She famously ordered that her personal papers be destroyed after her death, stating she wanted no one to 'immortalize' her—an act that reflected her lifelong guardedness about her personal history, including her concealed Black ancestry and invented Portuguese lineage. This destruction of records has made subsequent historical research into her life especially challenging, though it has not diminished recognition of her monumental professional legacy as one of the most powerful and influential librarians and art connoisseurs of her era.