Showing posts with label exhibit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exhibit. Show all posts

Monday, February 19, 2024

Bruce Guthrie reflects on Childhood Favorites: 100 Years of Children’s Book Illustration exhibit

by Bruce Guthrie

 Recently,  I drove up to Hagerstown's Washington County Museum of Fine Arts museum to see the opening day of "Childhood Favorites: 100 Years of Children’s Book Illustration".  The exhibit runs until March 17.

The signage within the exhibit had some inconsistencies so I'm not entirely sure how many original works are present (the website says 140) or how many different artists are present (a sign in the exhibit says 62) but it's a bunch!  The printed signage is detailed and they made the effort to show you which of the pieces involved Newbery and Caldecott winners.

There is no catalog for sale and the exhibit brochure is mostly for kids activities so it's not that informative.  The exhibit is a traveling one and it has been making the rounds -- Google "Art Kandy Collection".  (Yep, that's apparently a real name.)

At some point, I'll have Google read the sign text for me and everything will be filled out better but I haven't had time for that.

Who's in the exhibit?  Oooh, it's extensive!  It does not have things like comic strips -- you won't find Sparky Schulz or Winsor McKay or Rose O'Neill in here.  These are the artists you'll see original works from -- I'm ignoring lithographs and copies of books.  By my count, there are 55 but I might have screwed up a couple:

 * Sarah Noble Ives -- pieces from c 1910-15
 * Peter Newell -- a drawing from c 1915
 * Anton Loeb -- the text describing his Wizard of Oz drawings mentions that the book was banned in some jurisdictions because of (1) anthropomorphized animals, (2) a strong female characters, and (3) no witches can be good
 * Campbell Grant
 * Feodor Rajankovsky
 * William Henry Bradley
 * Gustaf Tenggren
 * Tibor Gergely
 * Wesley Dennis
 * Theodor Seuss Geisel
 * Marc Simont
 * Garth Williams -- LOTS of Garth Williams...  Including a study sketch from "The Rabbits' Wedding" (1958) which was banned in places because a white rabbit was marrying a black rabbit
 * Michael Hague
 * Felicia Bond
 * Floyd Cooper
 * Tom Pohrt
 * David Wisniewski -- these were my FAVORITE pieces in the whole exhibit.  He did all of these with cut paper, mentioning he would go through as many as a thousand X-Acto knives per book.  These were great!  I've never heard of the books they were from ("Hand of the Fire Demon" and "Fire that Burns Forever", both from 1988) but he won a Caldecott Medal in 1997 for "Golem" -- if you view the book on Amazon ( https://www.amazon.com/Golem-David-Wisniewski/dp/0618894241 ), you can do the [Read Sample] option and see how that one was done as well
 * William Stout
 * Richard Egielski
 * S. Saelig Gallagher
 * Deborah Nourse Lattimore
 * Audrey Wood
 * Dennis Nolan
 * Don Wood
 * Patricia Polacco
 * Karen Barbour
 * Mercer Mayer
 * Rosemary Wells -- again, LOTS of Rosemary Wells
 * James Marshall
 * Gerald McDermott
 * Maria Kalman
 * William (Bill) J. Dugan
 * Jerry Pinkney
 * Barry Moser
 * Tomie dePaola
 * Arnold Lobel
 * Anita Lobel
 * Edward Frascino
 * Jules Feiffer
 * Joan Walsh Anglund
 * Hillary Knight
 * David Shannon
 * Gary Baseman
 * Chris Raschka
 * Mark Teague
 * Joe Cepeda
 * John Bemelmans Marciano
 * Maurice Sendak
 * Mel Crawford
 * Laurent de Brunhoff
 * Richard Scarry
 * Alice Provensen and Martin Provensen
 * Ted Rand
 * William Pene du Bois
 * Leonard Weisgard


There's also a fun "Freedom to Read" lithograph by Maurice Sendak which was done for an American Booksellers Association back in 1991 to develop awareness of book censorship and to aid the ABA's Legal Defense Fund.  It was signed by a bunch of people.  The main signature I noticed was Dan Rather -- top and center -- but you can also do the treasure hunt looking for other autographs.  The sign mentions a bunch of names including Harlan Ellison, Harrison Ford, Whoopi Goldberg, Jeff Goldblum, Mickey Hart, Barry Moser, Neil Simon, Gloria Steinem, Garry Trudeau, Robin Williams, and Don and Audrey Wood.

The museum's website is https://wcmfa.org/ .  It offers free admission and free parking.  Plus it's in a gorgeous park area of the town -- there's a lake across from it -- and you may notice a new memorial to Clara Barton that's about to be unveiled near the entrance.

It's definitely worth a visit.  There's also a new exhibit "Picasso on Paper" which runs until early March.  The free gallery brochure describes in a fair amount of detail his relationships with the women in his life -- pretty much the artist version of Donald Trump minus the coup attempt.

I of course photographed the hell out of everything.  The direct link to my exhibition pictures is:


But some of my favorites are below.




















 

Sunday, December 17, 2023

War comics in LOC's serials exhibit case

 Library of Congress's serials division houses the comic book collection, and they usually have a small exhibit case right inside the entrance where people come for their library cards. This month's is on war and Christmas and there are two comic books in the case along with other publications. One is a Sgt Rock comic, and the other is the Dogs of War graphic novel.

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Rose O'Neill exhibit visit & photos by Bruce Guthrie

A Kewpie pointing the way

by Bruce Guthrie 

Photo obsessive

http://www.bguthriephotos.com


The Sordoni Art Gallery at Wilkes University has an amazing exhibit on the works of cartoonist, illustrator, artist and writer Rose O'Neill.  O'Neill, who died in 1944, is credited as the first female cartoonist published in the United States.  She was the creator of the Kewpies (see some of the images below).  Personally, I've been weirded out by the cute characters but I grew up on Talking Tina, Smurfs, and Chuckie.  Back in 1909 when the characters made their debut in Ladies' Home Journal, this wasn't an issue.  The characters were immensely popular in print and were manufactured as bisque dolls starting in 1912, becoming one of the first mass-marketed toys in the United States.

O'Neill retained the rights to her creation and made a fortune using them in books as well as advertising for companies like Jell-O.  She also did unrelated illustrations for books and magazines like Puck.  The exhibit covers the whole range of her illustrated life.  It also includes some of the Kewpie bisques and other sculptures.  (Again, I found the Kewpie dolls to be pretty creepy.)  The Jell-O advertisement pieces came from the Jell-O museum. (Yep!  There's a Jell-O museum!)  Other pieces came from the Norman Rockwell Museum, private collectors, and a whole bunch of other sources.

I got a kick out of looking at her signature for the Kewpie drawings -- in some cases it morphed into a figure participating in the story.  

I had to ask if she drew any non-white Kewpies.  Apparently not.  She did a black Kewpie doll (which, to me, looked even creepier than the the others) because she thought representation was important but, like Norman Rockwell, she worked within publisher limits and they didn't want black characters offending snowflake southern whites.  Rockwell quit doing the Saturday Evening Post covers because they said he was only allowed to show blacks in servile roles.  Rose drew some black characters in Puck cartoons.  The signage says that she avoided stereotypes and "she made the definite choice to show people of color, women, and the poor and unhoused with dignity and truth."

A lot of her work was destroyed in a fire but what they had in the show was really impressive, covering all aspects of her career.  The latter career pieces included a pin-up (she did four of them in the 1930s -- the signage sounded like she did it because she was short on cash, having lost a bundle in the Depression) and some from her truly different "Sweet Monsters" series as well as art she did for novels that she wrote.  She published her first novel, "The Loves of Edwy," in 1904.

The show catalog was 172 pages and measures 12" by 10".  You can pick up one free copy at the gallery but otherwise they request a $30 contribution.  It's worth it.

Like with the Ralph Steadman exhibit at American University's Katzen Arts Center back in 2018 (which had splatter paint on random walls), there are Kewpie characters appearing in random places on the museum walls.

O'Neill, BTW, was born and spent her first couple of years within blocks of where the gallery is today.  The gallery's first exhibit 50 years ago was George Caitlin, who was also born in Wilkes-Barre.  The other sort of big name artist from there was Franz Kline.

My obsessive photo shoot is on:

http://www.bguthriephotos.com/graphlib.nsf/keys/2023_09_24B1_Sordoni_Rose


The One Rose: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Rose O’Neill

Sordoni Art Gallery 50th Anniversary Exhibition

Aug. 25 - Oct. 8, 2023

https://www.wilkes.edu/about-wilkes/arts/sordoni-art-gallery/exhibitions-and-events/index.aspx





















Tuesday, February 01, 2022

Bruce Guthrie on "Icons of American Animation" in Westminster, Maryland

 by Bruce Guthrie

I went to Westminster, Maryland to visit the new "Icons of American Animation" exhibit which is spread over two different venues there.  The exhibit opened on January 3rd and runs until March 12th.

The main portion, about 60% of the 150+ pieces, are at the Carroll County Arts Council’s Tevis Gallery.  This gallery's largest chunk are Disney pieces (although, like the other sections, there are Disney pieces in both galleries).

The other portion is at the Esther Prangley Rice Gallery at McDaniel College.

The two galleries are 0.4 miles apart and you can easily walk between them.  I parked for free at the college, visited the gallery there, and then walked to the Council's gallery.  Both exhibits are free.

Both venues offer the free 32-page color exhibition pamphlet which includes images of all of the pieces in the exhibit as well as some of the wall text.

The exhibit includes original sketches and animation cels dating back to 1914.  That earliest piece is a sketch from Winsor McCay's "Gertie the Dinosaur" which most of us keep thinking is America's first animated cartoon.  In actuality, McCay himself had earlier made "Little Nemo" (1911) and "How a Mosquito Operates" (1912) and there were some earlier animation experiments done earlier by others. Wikipedia bills the cartoon as "the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur."

Another McCay piece, a panel from his "The Sinking of the Titanic" (1918) is also included.



There is an amazing array of pieces here.  When I was walking between the venues, I was promoting the exhibit to strangers on the street and a Westminsterite lit up and asked if there were any pieces by Ralph Bakshi in the show -- he especially loved "Fritz the Cat".  Well, yes.  There is a cell from that as well as from Bakshi's "Wizards".

To give you an idea of some of the pieces you'll see by decade:

  • 1910s: The two Winsor McCay pieces.
    Curator Robert Lemieux
  • 1920s: Oswald the Rabbit, Steamboat Willie, Out of the Inkwell
  • 1930s: Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Betty Boop, Gulliver's Travels, Flowers and Trees (Disney), The Band Concert (Disney), Porky's Duck Hunt
  • 1940s: Fantasia, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad, Bambi, Superman (Fleisher), Bambi, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, Red Hot Riding Hood (Tex Avery), Mighty Mouse
  • 1950s: Gerald McBoing-Boing, Rooty Toot Toot, Mr. Magoo, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Huckleberry Hound, Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, 101 Dalmatians, Tom and Jerry, What's Opera Doc, Road Runner Show
  • 1960s: The Jungle Book, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, Jonny Quest, Space Ghost, The Pink Panther, Charlie Brown, George of the Jungle, Droopy
  • 1970s: The Aristocats, Scooby Doo, Yogi Bear, Wizards, Fritz the Cat, Horton Hears a Who, The Phantom Tollbooth
  • 1980s: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, The Smurfs, Secret of NIMH, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, The Simpsons
  • 1990s: Aladdin, The Lion King, Tarzan, Mulan, Rugrats, Toy Story 2, Nightmare Before Christmas, The Ren & Stimpy Show
  • 2000s: Shrek

Obviously, as cartoons increasingly became computer-generated, you're not going to see original cels so the latter years are mostly represented by concept art or storyboards.  The latest piece, for example, was a city design painting from "Shrek" (2001).  One of the pieces (a model sheet) was a lithograph but everything else was original.

Since there are two venues, you'll want to time your visit so you can see both of them in the same trip.  Of course the venues have different hours but here's a combined schedule -- don't go on Wednesday or Sunday!:

  • Monday: Rice 10-4pm, Council 10-4pm
  • Tuesday: Rice 10-4pm, Council noon-7pm
  • Wednesday: Rice 10-4pm, Council ---
  • Thursday: Rice 10-4pm, Council noon-7pm
  • Friday: Rice 10-4pm, Council 10-4pm
  • Saturday: Rice noon-5pm, Council 10-4pm
  • Sunday: Rice ---, Council ---

The exhibit's official home page is https://iconsofanimation.com/  The news release about the exhibit: https://www.mcdaniel.edu/news/major-exhibition-curated-communication-professor-highlights-artistic-and-cultural-significance

I of course did my normal photo obsessive thing, spending about 90 minutes at each venue and some of my photos are below.  My pages for the exhibit:

Both venues require masks but not proof of vaccination.  During my visit, there were two other people seeing the Rice exhibit and three at the Council gallery (two of them being the same two from the Rice exhibit) so social distancing was easy.