An exploration of the artistic and cultural influences that shaped writer and illustrator Edward Gorey
The illustrator, designer, and writer Edward Gorey (1925-2000) is beloved for his droll, surreal, and slightly sinister drawings. While he is perhaps best known for his fanciful, macabre books, such as The Doubtful Guest and The Gashlycrumb Tinies, his instantly recognizable imagery can be seen everywhere from the New Yorker to the opening title sequence of the television series Mystery! on PBS. Gorey's Worlds delves into the numerous and surprising cultural and artistic sources that influenced Gorey's unique visual language.
Gorey was an inveterate collector--he called it "accumulating." A variety of objects shaped his artistic mindset, from works of popular culture to the more than twenty-six thousand books he owned and the art pieces in his vast collection. This collection, which Gorey left to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art upon his death, is diverse in style, subject, and media, and includes prints by Eugène Delacroix, Charles Meryon, Edvard Munch, and Odilon Redon; photographs by Eugène Atget; and drawings by Balthus, Pierre Bonnard, Charles Burchfield, Bill Traylor, and Édouard Vuillard. As this book shows, these artistic pieces present a visual riddle, as the connections between them-to each other and to Gorey's works-are significant and enigmatic. The essays in Gorey's Worlds also examine the artist's consuming passions for animals and ballet.
Featuring a sumptuous selection of Gorey's creations alongside his fascinating and diverse collections, Gorey's Worlds reveals the private world that inspired one of the most idiosyncratic artists of the twentieth century.
Exhibition Schedule: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, February 10 - May 6, 2018
Gorey was an inveterate collector--he called it "accumulating." A variety of objects shaped his artistic mindset, from works of popular culture to the more than twenty-six thousand books he owned and the art pieces in his vast collection. This collection, which Gorey left to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art upon his death, is diverse in style, subject, and media, and includes prints by Eugène Delacroix, Charles Meryon, Edvard Munch, and Odilon Redon; photographs by Eugène Atget; and drawings by Balthus, Pierre Bonnard, Charles Burchfield, Bill Traylor, and Édouard Vuillard. As this book shows, these artistic pieces present a visual riddle, as the connections between them--to each other and to Gorey's works--are significant and enigmatic. The essays in Gorey's Worlds also examine the artist's consuming passions for animals and ballet. Featuring a sumptuous selection of Gorey's creations alongside his fascinating and diverse collections, Gorey's Worlds reveals the private world that inspired one of the most idiosyncratic artists of the twentieth century.
"The title . . . "Gorey's Worlds" is just right for a project that aims to lay out the genealogy of Gorey's artistic imagination, by juxtaposing his own work with works from his collection of drawings, prints, photographs, and paintings by some of the artists who were important to him. . . . In the history of the visual and literary arts Gorey's is a relatively small achievement. But it will endure. Gorey took the exact measure of his imagination. He let it rip-but with the utmost care."
---Jed Perl, New York Review of Books
