Illustration Copyright © 2002 by Yumi Heo. From Henry’s First Moon Birthday by Lenore Look.
“Today, more talented artists by far are involved in picture-book making than ever before, with art schools, museums, and galleries most recently becoming devoted to picture-book illustration as an art form,” said picture-book historian Leonard S. Marcus.
They exhibit focuses on illustrations of the last ten years and is divided into the following categories:
The New Child
The Child in the Family
The Child at School and Play
The Child in the Community
The Child in History
The Questioning Child and
The New Picture Book.
Featured illustrators include: Etienne Delessert, Marla Frazee, Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), Maurice Sendak, William Steig and Chris Van Allsburg.
The show was organized by the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, NY, and the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, and is co-curated by Marcus, art historian Jane Bayard Curley and librarian Caroline Ward and runs through September 14.
Speaking of picture-books. Don’t miss Erica S. Pearl’s piece at Salon.com, “I’m Talking to You, Corded! : The Mismatch of Technology and Picture Books.” Pearl takes a look at the disconnect between the representation of technology in modern picture-books and the reality of the modern technologies that appear in many children’s environments.
Pearl asks the question “Why do modern picture-book scenes often look so dated”
“The homes we see in children’s picture books—even books published in the current decade and set in the present—often seem conspicuously dated. There are few computers. E-mail is hardly ever mentioned (much less checked). Phones usually have long, loopy cords tethering the receiver to the base.”
She offers numerous visual examples included a few that incorporate the appropriate technology of the day.
Illustration © Sylvia van Ommen from Jellybeans.