Owned by
Tyler Clementi
1991–2010
Violin bow
ca. 2000
ebony, ebony frog with nickel and mother-of-pearl, silver wire, horsehair
Overall: 29 1/4 × 1 × 1/2 in. (74.3 × 2.5 × 1.3 cm)
Gift of the Clementi Family
2024.10.3
Tyler Clementi’s violin stands as a powerful symbol of the LGBTQ+ rights movement. In 2010, while a first-year student at Rutgers University, the acclaimed violinist, who played for New Jersey’s Ridgewood Symphony Orchestra and had served as concertmaster in the Bergen Youth Orchestra, became the target of homophobic cyberbullying. Days after his roommate secretly live-streamed Clementi in an intimate encounter with another man, he ended his life. He was eighteen years old.
Clementi’s suicide made global headlines and prompted essential conversations about cyberbullying and the challenges facing LGBTQ+ youth. New Jersey passed a bipartisan Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights that year, and Senator Frank Lautenberg and Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey introduced federal legislation called the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act to require colleges and universities receiving federal student aid funding to enact anti-harassment policies.
Clementi’s memory lives on through the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which seeks to end bullying and turn passive bystanders into Upstanders welcoming of diversity—as well as through symbols of Clementi’s talent and passion, like his treasured violin.
ProvenanceTyler Clementi (1991–2010); to the Clementi Family, 2010; gift to New-York Historical Society, 2024ClassificationsENTERTAINMENT & RECREATION
Object NameViolin bow
