Maurice Sendak, “Wild Things”
by Liz Goldner
Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado
Exhibition continues through February 17, 2025
December 14, 2024
Maurice Sendak, “Where the Wild Things Are,” 1963, watercolor, ink, and graphite on paper, 9 3/4 x 11”.
Courtesy © The Maurice Sendak Foundation.
“Where the Wild Things Are” (1963), a children’s book by Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), tells in pictures and words the tale of a young boy, Max, who conjures up wild adventures while yearning for acceptance from those dear to him. “Sendak’s art tells stories of courage, adventure, resilience, curiosity and a deep understanding of the human desire for connection and discovery,” according to Christoph Heinrich, Denver Art Museum Director and co-curator of this exhibition.
“Where the Wild Things Are” may have been written for children, yet adults, having once been children themselves, relate to a story about a world populated by wild and surreal yet charming creatures, and about the importance of unconditional love. As the most popular of Sendak’s several award-winning books, its title is appropriated for this surprisingly wide-ranging exhibition. The show is bursting with more than 400 Sendak sketches, drawings, paintings, storyboards for operas and plays, movie props, and wall-sized drawings of Wild Things characters. The mostly untrained artist also illustrated books by other authors, as well as for his own several award-winning books, including “In the Night Kitchen” (1970) and “Outside Over There” (1981).
Maurice Sendak, “Where the Wild Things Are,” 1963, watercolor and ink on paper, 9 3/4 x 22”.
Courtesy © The Maurice Sendak Foundation.
Several galleries include original watercolor and ink drawings from “Wild Things;” earlier studies for the book’s illustrations; set designs for the Wild Things opera and other operas; costumes for the Wild Things feature-length film; and copies of the book, translated into more than 40 other languages (The book has sold more than 19 million copies worldwide). Illustrations from the book on the gallery walls include a forest growing in Max’s room; his small boat sailing to an exotic land; and his meeting with the wild things — four unruly creatures with big round heads, sharp teeth, yellow eyes, tiny necks and large feet. Upon meeting Max, these irrepressible beings engage in hilarious and joyous behavior, including dancing wildly in the moonlight, hanging from jungle trees and prancing around with Max on their backs.
These imaginative characters also “roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth …,” as Sendak wrote. The catalog accompanying the show explains that the Wild Things have “the ability to be both disturbing and comfortable, strange and familiar … They can be all things to all people.” Yet, “they retain their individuality.” They may even inspire readers to explore their own creative thoughts and unique behaviors.
Maurice Sendak, “In the Night Kitchen,” 1970, watercolor and ink on paper as printed in
color in Maurice Sendak, “In the Night Kitchen.” Courtesy New York: Harper & Row.
While the titular book is the most popular of the author/artist’s six-decade oeuvre, the exhibition shows that the trove of Sendak’s work is vast. On view are traditional-style portraits that Sendak created early in his career in oil, ink, and pencil. These include compassionate portraits of his mother, Sadie, his father, Philip, his brother, Jack, and his life partner, Eugene Glynn, who was a psychiatrist, writer, and art critic. Sendak’s self-portraits reveal his expertise at figuration, understanding of light and dark, and especially the ability to convey the creative and empathetic spirit of himself as the subject. The catalog explains, “because Sendak worked in a field that most art critics ignored or considered minor, he had the freedom to follow his influences wherever they took him, creating complex figurative narratives in a realist style that was discouraged in so-called ‘fine art’ painting.”
In the 1970s, Sendak segued from authoring children’s books to designing more than a dozen sets for theater productions and opera. Collaborating with renowned directors, musicians, and visual artists, he created lush, exotic stage sets, with several conveying the expressive brushwork and phantasmagorical images that characterized his earlier children’s books. His design for the Houston Grand Opera’s “The Magic Flute” (1980) includes multi-colored jungle foliage, and “a trio of Mozart-esque figures,” as one critic described them — three young boy messengers wearing old-fashioned wigs who offer a glockenspiel to Mozart, ensconced in a small hut accompanied by his scores. The storyboard also features ancient Egyptian icons, a sphinx, a falcon-headed god, and a horn player dressed like a fortune teller. The artist’s design for “The Nutcracker” ballet (1983) is less inventive. His program cover (and related storybook) reveals a toy soldier enveloped by a Christmas tree festooned with toys and other holiday accoutrements.
Maurice Sendak, “The Magic Flute,” 1980, poster, 24 x 17 1/2”. Courtesy © The Maurice Sendak Foundation.
Many other magnificent drawings, paintings and fantasy sketches grace this exhibition. The sketches are particularly compelling, as each artwork contains several related, often whimsical pictures drawn onto one piece of paper. Sendak is quoted in the catalog: “Music, which accompanied the creation of these pages, is the catalyst that brought them to life … Music helped unravel my imaginary scenes; it pressed the button, turned the key, kept my pen moving across the paper…”
Maurice Sendak, “Levine Conducts Mahler, Symphony No. 3 in D Minor,” 1976, watercolor on paper, box album cover, 14 1/2 x 14 1/2”. Courtesy © The Maurice Sendak Foundation.
While the breadth and depth of Sendak’s work are breathtaking overall, one musically inspired work not to be missed is a watercolor on paper, “Mahler’s Symphony No.3” (1976). Depicting the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) in a moonlit garden, Sendak’s original artwork was commissioned by the RCA Corporation for the LP album cover of “Levine Conducts Mahler, Symphony No. 3 in D Minor.” The painting and album cover present Mahler in his composing hut, surrounded by nature, receiving flowers from an angel, while a band of animals play their instruments in the elaborate garden outside. Mahler’s Third Symphony explores the relationship between humanity and nature and the nature of existence. The image is a stellar example of the themes that are inherent to Sendak’s endlessly creative body of work.
