Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are has enchanted tens of millions of people since it was first published in 1963.  The story of rebellious Max taming the beastly Wild Things of his own imagination is a perennial bestseller, and has been translated into dozens of languages.  Sendak himself adapted it for the stage in the 1970s, and director Spike Jonze debuts his film adaptation in October 2009.  The book is successful with both children and adults, and it has not lost its appeal from one generation of readers to another.

This exhibition presents Sendak’s original watercolors, preliminary drawings, and manuscripts for the book.  You can follow his working process from the rambling fantasy of his 1955 dummy book Where the Wild Horses Are to his dazzlingly colorful and tightly composed final watercolors.  Posters, advertisements, and toys—many of them designed by Sendak—show the continued impact of Max and the Wild Things on pop culture, and prove that Sendak’s story is still hot after almost half a century.