Maurice Sendak, Sketch for A Hole is to Dig, 1952, ink on paper, 11 x 14 in. ©The Maurice Sendak Foundation
Book lovers will have much to celebrate this fall with our upcoming exhibition Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak (opens October 13). Like many of us, the author-illustrator of Where the Wild Things Are fell in love with books at an early age. He devoured (figuratively) dime-store Disney books and comics, but he received his first bound book, Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper, as a gift from his sister, Natalie. As he told Virginia Haviland in 1970:
A ritual began with that book which I recall very clearly. The first thing was to set it up on the table and stare at it for a long time. Not because I was impressed with Mark Twain; it was just such a beautiful object. Then came the smelling of it. … The Prince and the Pauper smelled good and it also had a shiny cover, a laminated cover. I flipped over that. … I remember trying to bite into it, which I don’t imagine is what my sister intended when she bought the book for me. But the last thing I did with the book was to read it. … there’s so much more to a book than just the reading; there is a sensuousness.
He commemorated his own multisensory experience in a drawing for A Hole is to Dig (1952). An early sketch for “A book is to look at” includes kids experiencing books in different ways—including biting.
We’re excited for you to see early sketches and final drawings for A Hole is to Dig, Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and many more. We hope you enjoyed this taste of what you can expect in the exhibition. Sign up for our e-newsletter and follow us on social media for more delicious details about the show (including when tickets go on sale).
