Sendak at the Skirball

Wow.

At last, my wife and I have been able to see the exhibition Wild Things Are Happening: The Art of Maurice Sendak at the Skirball Cultural Center here in Los Angeles. The show opened on May 23 and will be on view through September 1. 

Again, wow. Anyone interested in children's literature, picture books, the book arts, illustration, cartooning, comics, or artistic collaborations across media should hightail it to this exhibition, which  is an artistic treasure house as well as moving testimony to Sendak's life and loves. It is stunning.

The show began at the Columbus Museum of Art in October 2022 and is slated for the Denver Art Museum this October. Assembled from the collection of The Maurice Sendak Foundation and organized by the Columbus Museum, the exhibit is thoughtfully curated by Jonathan Weinberg, Curator for the Foundation, and co-curated at the Skirball by Cate Thurston and Sarah Daymude. It is brilliantly designed and immersive. I walked around in it and stared at it until my brain overloaded and my feet hurt, and I expect to go back and look at it again.

I've seen originals by Sendak on exhibit before, including book dummies and finished illustrations, but never have I seen so much prepublished work, autographic work, and personal art by him before. The exhibition gives a powerful sense of Sendak at work, of his creative processes (for example, his everyday "fantasy sketches," such as in the detail below) and of the handmade nature of his art. 

This same intimacy comes through in the exhibit's evocation of Sendak's childhood, family, and relationships. If Sendak's work often has a tender, almost wounded autobiographical quality, the roots of that can be seen in the many family portraits and self-portraits gathered in the show (the first image in this post consists of details from three Sendaks drawn by Sendak!). Family, culture, and childhood environments loom large in the exhibition, which imparts a close and confidential feeling. I've known for a long time that many of Sendak's works were crypto-autobiographical (scholarly readings of, say, In the Night Kitchen almost always take that line), yet this show somehow makes that fact feel real and urgent. 

The show itself partakes of this veiled biographical quality, as the first installation or environment appears to be a family sitting room with a fireplace, sofa, chairs, drawing table, and bookcase, and then again a small curtain in one corner, which I imagine would be good for putting on puppet shows. From here, the exhibit draws you toward self-portraits, childhood memorabilia, and family lore, juxtaposed with published works that draw on that history. I fell for this right away, which is to say I fell under the exhibition's spell.

While highlighting the personal nature of Sendak's work, the show reveals some of his influences (Fuseli, Caldecott, Disney, McCay) and honors many of his collaborators, such as Randall Jarrell, Arthur Yorinks, Ursula Nordstrom, Ruth Krauss, Carole King, Frank Corsaro, Art Spiegelman, and Tony Kushner. Sendak's various overlapping art worlds, from the page to the stage, are well represented. The more than 150 artifacts on view suggest a life that combined art, intense, meditative privacy, and yet sociability and deep, enduring friendships.

This is simply a great show. If you can get to see it, do! And know that there is a substantial companion book as well, edited by Jonathan Weinberg.