“There should be a place where only the things you want to happen, happen.” And there certainly was a place for Maurice Sendak; the beloved author and illustrator of ‘Where the Wild Things Are’. Sendak was a charismatic creature that managed to capture many children’s (and adults’, with a child’s heart) imagination with his simple, but yet so poetic words and enchanting illustrations.
In the following days Sotheby’s will auction preliminary and finished drawings, original artwork, theatrical props and more under the titled exhibition ‘Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak’.
Now I don’t know if this is a smart strategy for those highly interested to bid for the lot(s), but do take the following into consideration (in Sendak’s manner of course):
A little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters – sometimes very hastily – but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said: ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.
Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak
16 November-18 December | New York
Image Courtesy: Sotheby’s
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE: MOISHE AND BERNARD, May 1970
Pen-and-ink line and watercolor on paper
9 x 11 1/2 in.; 23 x 29 cm
NEW YORK IS BOOK COUNTRY, June 1979
Pen-and-ink line and watercolor on paper
27 1/2 x 23 1/2 in.; 70 x 59.5 cm
WILD THING CHRISTMAS TREE, 1976
Pen-and-ink line and watercolor on paper
19 3/4 x 16 1/8 in.; 50 x 41 cm
10.5 x 7 in.; 27 x 18 cm
SOMETHING EVEN SCARIER COULD BE LURKING IN YOUR PHONE BILL, 1998
Pencil and watercolor on paper
11 x 10 in.; 28 x 25.5 cm
Text by a big Sendak admirer: Dimitria Markou
