Past exhibition: Sendak on Sendak

There's a Mystery There
From 05/06/2008 to 05/03/2009

Welcome to There’s a Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak, a retrospective of the work of author and artist Maurice Sendak. There’s a Mystery There focuses on Sendak’s personality as a storyteller engaging with difficult and mysterious themes and memories in his work. It explores Sendak’s prolific imagination through the characters, influences, and settings of his books, as well as Sendak’s quest to illustrate what he calls “the Other Story,” the hidden meanings of a text that haunt and enrich his illustrations.

There’s A Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak will be on display at the Rosenbach Museum & Library from May 6, 2008 to May 3, 2009, with new works on view every four months. A total of over 300 original watercolors, pen-and-ink sketches, doodles, manuscripts, books, and dummy books from the 1950s to today will be on display. Visitors can access new interviews with Sendak through digital touchscreens throughout the galleries. This exhibition will begin a national tour in the summer of 2009.

Sponsors

There’s A Mystery There: Sendak on Sendak was curated by Patrick Rogers, nwith exhibition design by Steve Tucker. There’s A Mystery There was created thanks to a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The national tour is presented by HarperCollins Children’s Books. Additional major support for the exhibition and related programming has been received from Battledore, Ltd., Peter Benoliel and Willo Carey, Cozen O’Connor LLP, Dorothy Del Bueno, the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, EwingCole, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, the Glenmede Trust Company, Carole Haas Cravagno, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism and Marketing Corporation, Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC, the Bulletin, the Otto Haas Charitable Trust #2, the Hirsig Family Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation, State Representative Babette Josephs and the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development, the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation, Bernard and Judith Newman, The Philadelphia Cultural Management Initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts, administered by the University of the Arts, The Marilyn and Mickey Steinberg Foundation of the Ayco Charitable Foundation, Lenore H. Steiner and Perry A. Lerner, and James B. Warden.