The Jewish Museum Celebrates "The Art of Ezra Jack Keats"

Written by Marcel Straczinsky Sunday, 13 November 2011 23:27

New York City.- The Jewish Museum is pleased to present "The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats", the first major United States exhibition to pay tribute to award-winning author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats (1916-1983), whose beloved children’s books include 'Whistle for Willie' (1964), 'Peter’s Chair' (1967), and 'The Snowy Day' (1962). The exhibition opens at The Jewish Museum on view through January 29th 2012. Published at the height of the American civil-rights movement and winner of the prestigious Caldecott Medal, 'The Snowy Day' became a milestone, featuring the first African-American protagonist in a full-color picture book. 'The Snowy Day' went on to inspire generations of readers, and paved the way for multiracial representation in American children’s literature. Also pioneering were the dilapidated urban settings of Keats’s stories. Picture books had rarely featured such gritty landscapes before. The exhibition features over 80 original works from preliminary sketches and dummy books, to final paintings and collages for the artist’s most popular books.  Also on view are examples of Keats’s most introspective but less-known output inspired by Asian art and haiku poetry, as well as documentary material and photographs.

The Jewish Museum exhibition is part of a wide-scale celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of 'The Snowy Day'. Following its New York City showing at The Jewish Museum, "The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats" will travel to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Amherst, MA; the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA; and the Akron Art Museum (March-June 2013).



Ezra Jack Keats was born Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz in Brooklyn in 1916.  His parents were Eastern European Jewish immigrants and very poor.  Although he briefly studied painting in Paris on the GI Bill after serving in World War II, Keats was primarily self-taught. He drew upon memories of growing up in East New York, one of the most deprived neighborhoods of New York City. Keats’s experience of anti-Semitism and poverty in his youth gave him a lifelong sympathy for others who suffered prejudice and want. His work transcends the personal and reflects the universal concerns of children. Keats used lush color in his paintings and collages and strove for simplicity in his texts. He was often more intent on capturing a mood than developing a plot.  His preferred format was the horizontal double-page spread, which freed him to alternate close-up scenes with panoramic views. By the end of his life in 1983, he had illustrated over eighty books, most of them for children, twenty-two of which he also authored. "The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats" explores Keats’s multifaceted oeuvre in six sections preceded by an introduction and followed by an epilogue. The introductory gallery presents a selection of works that can be construed as self-portraits of the artist. Throughout his career Keats often cast himself in his work posing as different characters, from the immigrant violinist János in 'Penny Tunes and Princesses' (1972) to the exuberant junkman Barney in 'Louie’s Search' (1980).  “Coming of Age in Brooklyn” features seminal works inspired by memories of Keats’s tenement childhood, including a selection of illustrations for 'Apt. 3' (1971)  Showcasing some of his most painterly spreads. Also on view are final drawings for 'Dreams' (1974), where color travels out of the Brooklyn windows and into the night as the tenement’s inhabitants begin to dream and darkness turns into incandescence. Keats’s combination of paint and marbled paper reaches a pinnacle in these illustrations.


The artist’s lengthy preoccupation with Louie, protagonist of some of his most autobiographic stories, is examined in this section through a series of illustrations for 'Louie' (1975), 'The Trip' (1978), 'Louie’s Search' (1980), and 'Regards to the Man in the Moon' (1981). In “Bringing the Background to the Foreground,” the artist’s early identification with the downtrodden is reflected in his 1934 award-winning painting, "Shantytown". Created by young Keats during the Depression, it is being shown along with other socially committed works. In order to express the significance of 'The Snowy Day' within the history of American children’s literature, an exhibition case is devoted to a brief survey of African-American representation in children’s books throughout the 20th century. Illustrations for 'My Dog is Lost!' (1960), coauthored by Keats and Pat Cherr, about a Puerto Rican boy named Juanito, are also on display. This is Keats’s first attempt to correct the problems of representation in children’s literature at the time and cast a minority child as protagonist. This pioneering move likely paved the way for his creation of Peter of 'The Snowy Day' fame. "The Snowy Day” section presents a wide selection of illustrations for the 1962 landmark book as well as for 'Whistle for Willie' (1964) and 'Peter’s Chair' (1967) featuring Peter as he grows up. The Snowy Day’s critical reception and debate sparked by its publication is also examined. “Peter’s Neighborhood” includes a rich selection of images for three of Keats’s greatly loved books: 'A Letter to Amy' (1968), 'Hi Cat!' (1970) and 'Pet Show!' (1972), featuring Peter on his way to becoming a teenage boy, as well as his friend Archie, who takes on more of a central role as Peter grows older. The selected illustrations are filled with Keats’s signature elements – abandoned old doors, overflowing garbage cans, trashed umbrellas, and graffitied walls; the background elements the artist was committed to bringing to the foreground in his books. A reading room for visitors of all ages inspired by Peter’s neighborhood and Brooklyn tenement brownstone stoops complements this section. Keats’s most introspective work is the focus of the “Spirituality, Nature, and Asian Art” section. On display are illustrations for 'In a Spring Garden' (1965), an anthology of haiku poems, with silhouetted animals set against skies of marbled paper; and his sumptuous art for Over the Meadow (1971), combining watercolor and collage. A preparatory drawing for 'The Giant Turnip', a Russian folktale that Keats chose to illustrate as a Japanese story, is also on view. The book was nearing completion at the time of the artist’s death in 1983.


In “Keats at Work,” Keats’s actual palette, brushes, materials used in his collages, and samples of marbled paper he created for his illustrations are displayed. In addition, visitors can view a film in which the artist demonstrates the technique of creating marbled paper, and other illustrators and authors who knew Keats comment on his wide-ranging influence. The exhibition ends with concluding illustrations for four Louie books first examined at the beginning of the show.  These books, done by Keats late in life, bring him back full circle to where it all began: his old Brooklyn neighborhood. The four spreads provide a moving epilogue to the show, including the last illustration from 'Regards to the Man in the Moon' (1981), published two years before Keats’s death, the first and only known instance in which he cast himself as an artist, brush in hand.

The Jewish Museum, one of the world's largest and most important institutions devoted to exploring the remarkable scope and diversity of Jewish culture, was founded in 1904 in the library of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, where it was housed for more than four decades. In 1944, Frieda Schiff Warburg, widow of the prominent businessman and philanthropist, Felix Warburg, who had been a Seminary trustee, donated the family mansion at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street to the Seminary for use as the Museum. Located along New York's Museum Mile, this elegant former residence has been the home of the Museum since 1947. A sculpture court was installed alongside the Mansion in 1959, and the Albert A. List Building was added in 1963 to provide additional exhibition and program space. In 1989, a major expansion and renovation project was undertaken. Upon completion in June 1993, the expansion doubled the Museum's gallery space, created new space for educational programs, provided significant improvements in public amenities, and added a two-floor permanent exhibition called Culture and Continuity: The Jewish Journey . The expanded Jewish Museum preserves the French Gothic chateau-style exterior of the original Warburg Mansion, which was designed by architect Charles P.H. Gilbert and completed in 1908. Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated the first gift of 26 objects of fine and ceremonial art to the library of The Jewish Theological Seminary of America with the suggestion that a Jewish museum be formed. Subsequent gifts and purchases have helped to form the Museum's distinguished collection and develop the concept of the institution, whose mission has been to preserve, study and interpret Jewish cultural history through the use of authentic art and artifacts, linking both Jews and non-Jews to a rich body of values and traditions.

Today, The Jewish Museum's permanent collection, which has grown to more than 26,000 objects -- paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, ethnographic material, archaeological artifacts, numismatics, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media materials -- is the largest and most important of its kind in the world. The Jewish Museum regularly presents large temporary exhibitions of an interdisciplinary nature. Such exhibitions often employ a combination of art and artifacts interpreted through the lens of social history in order to explore important ideas and topics. The Museum's highly successful The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth and Justice (1987), Gardens and Ghettos: The Art of Jewish Life in Italy (1989), From Court Jews to the Rothschilds: Art, Patronage and Power 1600-1800 (1996), ASSIGNMENT: RESCUE, The Story of Varian Fry and the Emergency Rescue Committee (1997) and Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture 1890-1918 (1999) are examples of this type of exhibition. The Museum is also known for its exhibitions of fine arts interpreted in the context of social history, such as Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York, 1900-1945 (1991) ; social history exhibitions such as Bridges and Boundaries: African Americans and American Jews (1992); and monograph shows of significant artists such as Camille Pissarro (1995), Marc Chagall (1996), Chaim Soutine (1998) and George Segal (1998). The Museum also regularly presents the works of contemporary artists in group exhibitions such as Too Jewish? Challenging Traditional Identities (1996) and one-person shows like Bordering on Fiction: Chantal Akerman's "D'Est" (1997). Its education department presents a diverse and wide-ranging array of programs for individuals, groups, families and schools. For nearly a century, The Jewish Museum has illuminated the Jewish experience, both secular and religious, demonstrating the strength of Jewish identity and culture. Its unparalleled collection and unique exhibitions offer a wide range of opportunities for exploring multiple facets of the Jewish experience, past and present, and for educating current and future generations. It is a source of education, inspiration and shared human values for people of all cultures. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.thejewishmuseum.org

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