His drawing skill was remarkable – among his early works were cartoon-style doodling to music, with the impish imagination that was his hallmark: a dog sitting, then a larger goose coming by, sticking its head down the dog’s throat and vanishing. In another, a fish emerges from another creature’s throat and joins it in antics. His efforts at being a “serious artist” using oil paints, were nowhere near as captivating as his intricately cross-hatched pen-and-ink drawings of children, animals, and their play.
The originals for Where the Wild Things Are were displayed, each in its own case. Up close, I marveled at the details as Mickey sails to where the wild things are: painted waves, but pen-and-ink lines too – man, those were finely-executed waves!
His Wild Things were featured in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2002 – I remarked to another visitor that you know you’ve Made It when your creation is in the Macy’s Parade. It’s a great and well-deserved honor.
With so many works to display, the exhibit couldn’t help sending me into sensory overload – every piece was note-worthy. A set of 3 illustrations for a story about a griffin showed first the large fierce griffin (bird’s head, lion’s body, bird legs) stalking down a city street, then a sketch, and finally the griffin at a sick child’s bedside, frowning at a thermometer in his feathery grasp. That expression on the griffin’s face was perfect – even if you’ve never seen a griffin, or a bird with a frown, Sendak’s blend of human with the features of a non-human, captures both the beast and universal expression.
Sendak stated that his art must not be cute, nor ever condescend to children – their antics and their imagination. He stayed true to that credo, and you should see this exhibit if you can!
