February 7 – June 10, 2012  

“We are the ship; all else the sea.” Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League Learn about history through these thirty-three paintings, thirteen sketches and educational materials from the book, WE ARE THE SHIP: The Story of Negro League Baseball, by Kadir Nelson, award-winning artist and author. Nelson spent seven years researching, writing, and creating handsome paintings to be included in the brilliantly illustrated book, WE ARE THE SHIP: The Story of Negro League Baseball, which is dedicated to the preservation of the history of Negro Leagues.  

The Society of Illustrators

January 31, 2012 through March 31, 2012

Until the mid-20th century, American illustrators portrayed children as wholesome, often funny, always innocent. Taking up the theme were some of America’s most preeminent illustrators, among them William Glackens, whose “Guess Who, Grandpa” is unreservedly coy, Reginald Birch, of Little Lord Fauntleroy fame, whose frenetic park scene captures the thrum of city life, and F.R. Gruger, whose intimate city scene is rendered with great sensitivity.

Women illustrators, who often were hired by periodicals when the subject was children, included Katherine Sturges Knight (mother of Eloise illustrator Hilary Knight), and Maud Hunt Squire, whose images are reminiscent of Japanese woodblocks.  Kids were also used not only as editorial fodder, but also to sell the new, mass-produced cereals, most memorably in the Cream of Wheat campaigns featuring healthy well-fed tots. Other upstanding kids can be seen in J.C. Leyendecker’s Boy Scout selling WWI war bonds, and John Falter’s boy at prayer for Reader’s Digest.

Then there are the naughty kids: A.B. Frost’s hilarious deadpan girl in “I Think There’s Something the Matter With Pop,” or Robert Hilbert’s would-be Indian caught using his mother’s makeup. And of course, Norman Rockwell’s Huck Finn, the bad boy of all bad boys.  By the 1960s, naiveté made room for darker themes as in Lorraine Fox’s young Sherlock, or Jerry Pinkney’s Holy Armor, in which two girls are drawn to devils and demons. For McCall’s, Herb Tauss captures the discomfort a young girl feels about her older brother’s romance, as the kids—along with the rest of the country—lose some of their innocence.

The Society of Illustrators

February 23, 2012 through March 17, 2012

The third of the three-part “Annual Exhibition: Illustrators 54,” the Advertising and Institutional Exhibit will be held at the Museum of American Illustration at the Society of Illustrators February 23 to March 17, 2012. It featured works by leading contemporary illustrators worldwide, selected by a prestigious jury of professionals.

Advertising illustration includes work for advertisements appearing in newspapers, magazines or on television; video and CD covers; brochures, fashion, point-of-purchase and packaging illustration; movie and theater posters.  Gold Medal winners include Gérard DuBois for his illustration Giant Milk Brick (AD Mélanie Baillairgé, BBDO Montreal), Leslie Herman for The World That Haunts the Clock Tower (AD Malia Hall, Okervil River), and Alessandro Gottardo for Waiting (Daniel Moorey, Volkswagen).  Silver Medals are awarded to Jonathan Bartlett for Greenland (AD Dustin Olson, The Bridge Theatre Company), Rod Hunt for his illustration Welcome to the World of Sex (AD Spencer Riviera, Goodby Silverstein & Partners), and Bill Mayer’s Creative Carnival (AD Alison Curry, Workbook). 

Institutional illustration includes work appearing on merchandise, announcements, annual reports, calendars, corporate projects, government service projects, greeting cards, newsletters, in-house publications, philatelic work and collectibles.  Gold Medal winners include Marcos Chin for his illustration Textile (Stephanie Pesakoff), Emiliano Ponzi for Evil Apple Core (EMI Music), and Jillian Tamaki for 16th Annual Croquet Ball (AD Cramer-Krasselt, Penfield Children’s Center).  Silver Medal winners include Sam Bosma for Frog Kaiju (AD Jim Burke, Dellas Graphics), Bill Carman for Translator (AD Heidi Leigh, Animazing Gallery), Brian Stauffer for Digital Evidence and the Smoking Gun (AD Winnie Hume, Emory Law),

Through March 11, 2012

Although best known today as the creator of Shrek, William Steig (1907-2003) first achieved fame for his cartoons and covers for The New Yorker and his published books of drawings such as The Lonely Ones (1942), Small Fry (1944), and Dreams of Glory and Other Drawings (1953). His situational gags are humorous and offer keen observations on various aspects of human relationships.  Steig’s drawing style in early works show emphatic, incisive lines and tonal washes.  Gradually he moved to simpler contour line drawings of figures inspired by the art of Pablo Picasso and the free-flowing dream-like images of Marc Chagall.  Late in Steig’s career he began creating children’s books that explore, in a lighter vein, many of the same themes as his cartoons for adults.  Steig wrote and illustrated over 30 acclaimed works for children, including the  Caldecott-winning Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969) and Shrek! (1990).  The exhibition will feature over 100 works donated to the Brandywine River Museum in 2010 by Jeanne Steig from the artist’s estate, as well as selected works for children on loan from the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and private collections.

Brandywine River Museum

March 17 through May 20, 2012

The exhibition will introduce visitors to the importance of the illustrated magazine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and emphasize the primacy of Scribner’s Magazine during the “golden age of illustration.”  Scribner’s art editors hired the best artists and illustrators, and the exhibition will feature the works of many of these artists, among them Robert Blum, Charles Dana Gibson, Thornton Oakely, Rose O’Neill, Maxfield Parrish, Howard Pyle, Frank Schoonover, John H. Twachtman and N. C. Wyeth.  Scribner’s also kept pace with technological developments in printing, and the exhibition will show the effects of radical changes in printing techniques that occurred between 1887 and 1912.  The earliest illustrations in the magazine were reproduced as wood engravings.  By January 1912, the magazine routinely printed four color reproductions.

N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), On the October Trail, For: Scribner’s (October 1908), oil on canvas, 1907, Brandywine River Museum,  Museum purchase, 1983

The National Museum of American Illustration

extended to May 30, 2012

and

The National Museum of American Illustration

extended to May 30, 2012

Delaware Art Museum

February 9, 2013 – June 1, 2013

This exhibition explores how contemporary illustrators of many styles are excited and inspired by Howard Pyle’s art. While some of these works bear clear visual similarity to Pyle, others reflect his influence in less obvious ways. A range of media will be included in this exciting exhibition