FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2011
PHILADELPHIA – The Rosenbach Museum & Library will present Grace Notes: A Sendakian Rhapsody– a visual exploration of Sendak’s musical influences beginning Wednesday, April 6 through Sunday, August 7, 2011. Grace Notes is an experience for the eyes, ears, and imagination. A multimedia exhibition, visitors can listen to the music that inspired some of the 30 artworks on display, including the earliest manuscript for Where the Wild Things Are, which Sendak likened to an opera’s “libretto.”
The exhibition will be the first to open in the same gallery space as the Chertoff Mural, the only surviving mural painted by Maurice Sendak, which is currently undergoing conservation on-site at the museum. The colorful, rambunctious, and lively mural depicts a processional of animals and children, including two boys playing a drum and a trumpet and Sendak’s own dog, Jennie. Work on the mural is expected to be complete by the opening of Grace Notes and visitors to the exhibition will have a chance to view the mural in its permanent home in the museum’s Maurice Sendak Gallery.
Deeply moved by opera and classical music, Sendak illustrated such iconic children’s books as Where the Wild Things Are, Outside Over There, and Dear Mili while listening to recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Mahler, and other favorite musicians. Their music helped inspire Sendak’s rhythmic compositions, colors, and even characters in his pictures.
“Music inspires grace,” said Maurice Sendak in a 2007 interview. “I don’t want a book just to be a book, I want it to suggest something as beautiful as Mozart.”
The interactive exhibition invites museum visitors to explore Sendak’s musical influences through illustrations, sketches, notes, and sound recordings. To encourage comparisons among pieces of music and works of art, visitors can access selections of music with special significance to Sendak’s work—such as Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, and Strauss’s tone poem Death & Transfiguration—through a touchscreen computer in the gallery.
Objects on display in Grace Notes include:
- A large watercolor painting of characters for the opera, The Cunning Little Vixen , about a smart and curious young fox, her animal friends, and their interactions with the humans of a nearby village, composed by Leos Janacek in the 1920s. Sendak’s character study helped visualize the costuming for the Vixen and a little cricket, while also exploring the oversized flower imagery with which he would decorate the stage.
- Singer-songwriter Carole King’s original score for Sendak’s story Pierre about a misbehaving young boy who just doesn’t care. This song was part of the 1975 animated television special Really Rosie, involving a number of Sendak’s characters,voiced andcomposed by King.
- Final drawings for Brundibár, a picture book written by Tony Kushner. The book is based on a children’s opera composed by Hans Krása with a libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister, which was originally performed by the children of the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
- Drawings for Outside Over There, a 1981 picture book by Sendak about a girl whose sister is kidnapped by goblins. Sendak’s record player never stopped as he developed this book over a six-year period. Mozart himself makes a cameo in the book, and three drawings on display reveal the artist’s playlist scribbled in the margins while he was working.
Grace Notes curator Patrick Rodgers, Traveling Exhibitions Coordinator at the Rosenbach, will be on hand to discuss the new exhibition during a Sendak Jam Session, a special Conversation with the Curator event on Thursday, May 26 at 6pm. Visitors are invited to jointhe museum for a lively discussion about how music influences the visual arts, and how Maurice Sendak riffs on his favorite composers in his illustrations. No backstage pass required. Free with museum admission.
Sendak & The Rosenbach
Maurice Sendak chose the Rosenbach Museum & Library to be the repository for his work in the early 1970s thanks to shared literary and collecting interests. His collection of nearly 10,000 works of art, manuscripts, books and ephemera has been the subject of many exhibitions and has been enjoyed by visitors of all ages. One of the most famous creators of contemporary children’s books, Maurice Sendak has challenged the norms of children’s literature over time and continues to entrance both children and adults to this day. His innovative techniques and honest portrayal of childhood emotion are celebrated worldwide and have earned him several prestigious honors, including the Caldecott Medal (1964), the international Hans Christian Andersen Medal (1970), the National Medal of Arts (1996), a Library of Congress “Living Legend” medal (2000) and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature (2003). The Rosenbach regularly features Maurice Sendak related exhibitions, programs, and events.
Support for this exhibition was generously provided by the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, the Kit and Lee Breckenridge Memorial Fund, and by the members and trustees of the Rosenbach Museum & Library.
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Image Credits (Access files in the Downloads section above):
1. File name: Rosenbach-Sendak-Very Special House opera prelim.jpg
Preliminary drawing for A Very Special House, written by Ruth Krauss. Pen and ink, watercolor. © 1953 by Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
2. File name: Rosenbach-Sendak-Proof For Love of Three Oranges_300.jpg
Proof copy of costume design for The Love for Three Oranges. © 1982 by Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
3. File name: Rosenbach-Sendak-Brundibar final p.54.jpg
Final drawing for Brundibar, written by Tony Kushner. Pencil, pen and ink, watercolor. © 2002 by Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
4. File name: Rosenbach-Sendak-Pierre MS scansion detail.jpg
Detail of manuscript page for Pierre. Pen and ink on notebook paper. © 1961 by Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
5. File name: Rosenbach-Sendak-Dear Mili Mozart prelim.jpg
Preliminary drawing for Dear Mili, written by Wilhelm Grimm. Pencil on tracing paper. © 1985 by Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
6. File name: Rosenbach-Sendak-Cumberlands final.jpg
Final drawing for The Singing Family of the Cumberlands, written by Jean Ritchie. Pen and ink. © 1955 by Maurice Sendak. All rights reserved.
