Category Archives: Exhibitions

The Art of William Steig at the Jewish Museum

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From The New Yorker to Shrek:
The Art of William Steig
November 4, 2007 – March 16, 2008
The Jewish Museum
New York, NY

Hailed as the “King of Cartoons,” William Steig had a long and acclaimed career as both a brilliant cartoonist and an award-winning, beloved author of children’s literature, including his 1990 picture book Shrek! (“fear” in Yiddish) which has been turned into a series of popular animated films. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 14, 1907, to Eastern European Jewish immigrants, Steig grew up in the Bronx and began illustrating for The New Yorker in 1930. His prolific association with the magazine is the longest by far of any of its cartoonists, with over 1,600 drawings as well as over 120 covers published during a period of 73 years. Scheduled for the centennial of the artist’s birth, this exhibition pays tribute to Steig’s incredible creativity by featuring a wide selection of original drawings for both his New Yorker cartoons and his children’s books such as Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Doctor De Soto, Amos & Boris, Brave Irene, Gorky Rises, Dominic, When Everybody Wore a Hat, and of course Shrek! as well as his less known mid-life “symbolic drawings.” This in-depth presentation also sheds light on Steig’s life as it relates to his work and will be complemented by a range of public and educational programs for both adults and children.

The Jewish Museum
1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street
New York, New York 10128
Phone: 212.423.3200

Admission for students is $7.50 and free for all on Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.

For an online exhibition component as well as other information, visit the Jewish Museum’s website here.

See a list of Steig-related events taking place in November here.

(artwork from Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969) by William Steig)

Bookish: An Exhibition of Contemporary Handmade Books

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bookish sign

Bookish: Contemporary Handmade Books
Curated by the Illustration Department, Parsons the New School for Design

Adam & Sophie Gimbel Design Library
The New School Libraries
2 West 13th Street 2nd Fl.
New York NY 10011

In these digital days, there remains nothing quite like a handmade
book. Silkscreened covers, staples, construction paper, thread, markers,
and, of course, drawings all add up to a singular object. The handmade
books on display here are steeped in drawing and narrative. The last 10
years have seen a burst in handmade books that evolve out of communities
of illustrators, cartoonists and fine artists. Perhaps seeking a more
personal and intimate way of displaying their work, these creators have
produced a large body of work across addressing multiple visual and
literary themes. They all share a commitment to image-based drawing and
crafting books that don’t just contain art: they are art.

The present exhibition is organized by community. Providence, Rhode
Island has been the home to a variety of zine and poster making activity
for the past decade. Led by artists including Brian Chippendale, Mat
Brinkman, Paper Rad, and Brian Ralph, Providence art tends to emphasize
psychedelic and adventure-based narratives. To the north, the Canadian
cities of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have long housed a productive
group of artists who mail their work to one another. Julie Doucet, Marc
Bell, Mark Connery, Peter Thompson and many others specialize in
wordplay, single image narratives, and finely wrought doodles. And in
Marseille, France, Le Dernier Cri, a book arts publishing house, has
been unleashing extreme, often grotesque imagery in silkscreen form for
over a decade by artists such as Blexbolex, Caroline Sury, and Moulinex.
The influence of these three centers of handmade books can be felt
around the globe. The final section of this exhibition presents a
sampling of this influence on a group of disparate and diverse works.

Handmade books satisfy artists and viewers alike with an immediacy like nothing else.

Don’t miss this special exhibition curated by the Illustration Department!

Maira Kalman exhibition @ Julie Saul Gallery

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Maira Kalman
The Principles of Uncertainty
October 11 – November 24, 2007

The Julie Saul Gallery is currently showing their third solo exhibition with acclaimed artist/ author/ illustrator Maira Kalman. Kalman produced an online-visual journal for The New York Times “Times Select” feature for one year from June 2006 to May 2007 entitled Principles of Uncertainty. Kalman’s exhibition will consist of more than one hundred of the original gouache paintings made for the project, as well as a photograph and print edition.

The exhibition coincides with an eponymous book just published by Penguin Press which brings together the whole year of online columns in printed form, as well as some added elements. The book will be displayed on a shelf as a running narrative throughout the entire gallery, while the paintings will be hung according to different themes.

Kalman’s journal combines paintings and text and touches on many personal and worldly subjects, from family history to world politics. Portrait subjects include Nabokov as a child, Freud, Edith Sitwell as well as friends and family. Most of her paintings are based on photographs made during her travels or wanderings in New York. She has recorded interiors such as Louise Bourgeois’s salon, Helen Levitt’s bathroom and the recreation of Proust’s study as well as hotel rooms, boxes, foods and other assorted objects.

Kalman has been the illustrator and often author of over a dozen books- most recently she illustrated “The Elements of Style” which is now out in paperback. Others include “What Peter Ate”, “Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey”, and “Max in Love”. She has collaborated with Mark Morris for set designs, designed bags, fabrics and assorted objects. She is the co-author of the famous New Yorker “Newyorkistan” cover.

Julie Saul Gallery
535 West 22 Street
6th Floor
New York, NY 10011
Phone: 212 627-2410
mail@saulgallery.com

(all images by Maira Kalman)

Georges Seurat: The Drawings @ MoMA

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seurat drawings

Georges Seurat: The Drawings
October 28, 2007–January 7, 2008
Museum of Modern Art

Once described as “the most beautiful painter’s drawings in existence,” Georges Seurat’s mysterious and luminous works on paper played a crucial role in his short, vibrant career. This comprehensive exhibition—the first in almost twenty-five years to focus exclusively on Seurat’s drawings—will present over 135 works, primarily the artist’s incomparable conté drawings along with a small selection of oil sketches and paintings. Surveying the artist’s entire oeuvre, from his academic training through the emergence and elaboration of his unique methods to the studies made for his monumental canvases (such as the renowned A Sunday on La Grande Jatte), the exhibition will also present important new research on his artistic strategies and materials.

In bridging description and evocation, Seurat masses tones to abstract figures, weaves skeins of conté crayon to test the limits of decipherable space, and engages with the Parisian metropolis, illuminating urban types, revealing the ever-expanding industrial suburbs, and offering a tour through the world of nineteenth-century popular entertainment. Most of all, his dramatization of the relationship between light and shadow resulted in a distinct body of work. Though Seurat is perhaps best known as the inventor of pointillism, this exhibition will demonstrate his tremendous achievement as a draftsman and the significance of his working methods and themes for the art of the twentieth century.

Visit the online exhibition here.

See a list of all related events here.

Read/see an interesting essay on Slate here.

The Museum of Modern Art
(212) 708-9400
11 West 53 Street,
between Fifth and Sixth avenues
New York, NY 10019-5497

Remember that New School students can get
into MoMA for free with their student IDs!

LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel

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LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel
on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum
November 10, 2007 through May 26, 2008

A burgeoning art form with roots planted firmly in history, graphic novels, or long-form comic books, have inspired the interest of the literary establishment and a growing number of readers. For today’s aficionados, graphic novels, with their antiheroes and visual appeal, are positioned to usurp the role that the novel once played. Focused on subjects as diverse as the nature of relationships, the perils of war, and the meaning of life, graphic novels now comprise the fastest-growing sections of many bookstores‹an accessible, vernacular art form with mass appeal.

This comprehensive exhibition explores the history and diverse artistry of the graphic novel, featuring personal commentary and artworks by celebrated historic and contemporary practitioners. Original book pages and studies, sketchbooks, and video interviews provide insights into an evolving and exciting art form. Artworks by Jessica Abel, Sue Coe, R. Crumb, Howard Cruse, Steve Ditko, Will Eisner, Brian Fies, Gerhard, Milt Gross, Marc Hempel, Niko Henrichon, Mark Kalesniko, Peter Kuper, Harvey Kurtzman, Matt Madden, Frans Masereel, Frank Miller, Terry Moore, Dave Sim, Art Spiegelman, Lynd Ward, Lauren Weinstein, Mark Wheatley, Barron Storey and others will be on view.

The exhibition is taking place at:

The Norman Rockwell Museum
9 Glendale Road, Route 183, Stockbridge, MA 01262

Admission is $7.00 for college students with valid school I.D.

For more information and a gallery of images from the show, go here.

(Above illustration by Peter Kuper)

The Beast Within: An Exhibition of Monster Art

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supertouch show

Announcing the official Supertouch Halloween art show, “The Beast Within,” curated by Jamie O’Shea, opening October 31st at the East Village’s SHOWROOM NYC GALLERY in conjunction with Tristan Eaton’s Thunderdog Studios. Featuring introspective monster art reflecting the participant’s personal demons (hence the title), the show features new & original work by over 65 artists including Pushead, Phil Frost, Stephan Jay Rayon (Hysteric Glamour), Doze Green, Eric White, Ron English, Louie Cordero, Tristan Eaton, Andy Cruz/House Industries, Mars-1, Steve Bliss, Shepard Fairey, D*Face, REAS (Todd James), Travis Louie, Rhode Montijo, Friends With You, Nathan Cabrera, Tim Biskup, Eric Elms, Kelsey Brookes, Jim Woodring, Mark Dean Veca, Erik Foss, Gary Baseman, Slick, Nathan Jurevicius, James Jean, Usugrow, Glenn Barr, Mike Moon, Gomez Bueno, Pete Fowler, Rick Griffin, Nate Van Dyke, Stanley Mouse, Andrew Brandou, Makoto Kobiyashi, Miran Kim, Peter Taylor, Scott Campbell, Jordin Isip, Melinda Beck, Joel Dugan, Jeff Soto, Elizabeth Huey, Jacaeber Kastor, Mark Smith, Carl Dunn, Junko Mizuno, Mike Sutfin, Rich Jacobs, Taylor McKimens, WK Interact, 123 Klan, Filth, Calma, and many more. Lots of surprises are in store, including limited-edition merchandise like the Pushead-designed shirt (produced by 10 Deep) shown below. New York City’s the best place on Earth to spend Halloween and “The Beast Within” is the best place to spend your hard-earned dough on some amazing artwork. Don’t be late, first come, first severed…

For more info: http://www.supertouchblog.com/2007/10/19/nycannouncing-the-supertouch-halloween-art-show/

SVA Masters Series Honors Steve Heller

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heller

The Masters Series: Steven Heller

School of Visual Arts (SVA), New York City, will honor Steven Heller with the Masters Series Award and retrospective exhibition. He is the author, co-author or editor of over 100 books on graphic design, illustration and political art, was an art director at The New York Times for 33 years and is a columnist for The New York Times Book Review. Heller is also the co-founder and co-chair of the MFA Design Department and co-founder of the MFA Design Criticism Department at SVA.

Lecture: Tuesday, October 23, 7pm
SVA Amphitheater
209 East 23 Street, 3rd floor
Free and open to the public.

The art director, writer and design authority will be speaking about his work, with Michael Bierut, partner, Pentagram and founding writer, Design Observer.

Exhibition: October 22 – December 1, 2007
Reception: Monday, October 22, 6 – 8pm
Visual Arts Museum
209 East 23 Street
New York, NY 10010
212.592.2145

Curated and designed by Kevin O’Callaghan, chair of 3D Design at SVA, the exhibition highlights the inspiration and collaboration behind Heller’s many achievements as a writer and art director. On view will be over 100 covers of The New York Times Book Review that Heller art directed and a visual anthology of his major publications, with select volumes available to peruse. An adjacent video installation will feature interviews with co-authors Mirko Ilic, Lita Talarico (co-chair of the MFA Design Department at SVA), Seymour Chwast, Marshall Arisman (chair of the MFA Illustration as Visual Essay Department at SVA) and Gail Anderson (on the faculty of the MFA Design Department at SVA) about their collaborative process. Nearby, visitors will be able to browse Heller’s many contributions to American and foreign periodicals at a full-scale replica of a New York City newsstand. The centerpiece of the multimedia display will be a larger-than-life photo montage of Heller’s library with recorded commentary about his collection of design ephemera and its role in his research and writing.

For more information, visit the exhibition overview.

Chris Mars “New Salem” Exhibit

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NEW YORK, NY– American artist Chris Mars debuts more than 25 new works in his exhibition New Salem, opening at Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York City on October 20, 2007. The paintings, all created this year, reflect themes of political persecution and corruption, interpersonal unity and cruelty, condemnation, redemption and hope by use of Mars’ stunning technical control of his medium, and his wrenching empathy relative to world events.

October 20 – November 17, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 20, 7pm – 9pm
The Jonathan LeVine Gallery is located at 529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 11am to 6pm. For more information, please call 212-243-3822, visit www.jonathanlevinegallery.com, or email: info@jonathanlevinegallery.com.

Downright @ Pink Elephant Projects (featuring Illustration Alums & Faculty)

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“DOWNRIGHT”
curated by Jashar Awan
October 5 – Nov. 17, 2007

PEP is excited to present Downright, an illustration show, curated by our own Jashar Awan. In anticipation of the December release of Taschen’s Illustration Now 2, in which Awan is featured, we asked Jashar, an artist whose work has been seen in many galleries and in popular publications such as The New York Times, Vibe, and The New Yorker, to put together a show of his favorite comtemporary illustrators. The outcome is a gathering of 40 artists pulled together in one spot, PEP. From highly renowned artists to rising stars, the show is not to be missed.

Featuring Illustration Faculty & Alums: George Bates, Jordin Isip, Phillip Fivel Nessen, Chang Park
Pink Elephant Projects (PEP)
64 Washington Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11205
347.266.5872
http://pepgallery.com/