Our local Denver Art Museum, affectionately known as DAM, is hosting a very large exhibit on Where the Wild Things Are. It’s all about the life and works of Maurice Sendak as well as some of his inspirations and collaborators.
The whole exhibit is incredible. He started drawing from a very young age. He was sick a lot as a kid, so he would imagine all the fun happening outside. He drew and wrote fully-formed characters from half-sentences he heard from random kids playing outside. He also wrote about his Jewish culture and later even turned those writings and drawing into kids’ books.
Read a little exhibit info and see a few images, too.
(Click any image to see it larger.)
Apologies for not having pics of the monsters. The movie and opera ones were massive and grand. But to me, they weren’t the important part of the exhibit.
We have never seen the movie; we need to rectify that soon. But the clips that were at the museum were so big feeling. (And the movie/opera creatures were enormous.) The movie clips of the monsters reminded me a lot of two things: the Gorgs from Fraggle Rock (Jim Henson) and the Fireys from Labyrinth (also Jim Henson). And it makes sense that I was reminded of those characters and shows:
“Sendak’s book Outside Over There and Where the Wild Things Are inspired general themes and elements in the film. The closing credits of Labyrinth acknowledge Henson’s debt to Sendak’s work. Henson’s Creature Shop provided the puppets for the film version of Where the Wild Things Are.”