EXHIBIT REVIEW: "Grace Notes" @ the Rosenbach Museum

Rosenbach's Sendak exhibit pulls together drafts and completed versions of many of the artist's works, including well-known pieces like In the Night Kitchen and Really Rosie, and his lesser-known album cover designs.

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EXHIBIT REVIEW: "Grace Notes" @ the Rosenbach Museum

POSTED: Friday, May 13, 2011, 11:00 AM

Sendak's final drawing for Brundibar

In his illustrations for everything from picture books to opera sets, Maurice Sendak has been powerfully influenced by classical music. “I believe that the music is telling you what to do all the time,” Sendak says, calling Mozart his “savior” from age 16. A fun new exhibit at the Rosenbach Museum explores the effect of music on his work.

The exhibit pulls together drafts and completed versions of many of Sendak’s pieces, including well-known works like In the Night Kitchen and Really Rosie, and his lesser-known album cover designs. The exhibit revealed a side of Sendak’s work I’d never thought much about, one that remains “largely unexamined,” a plaque said. Sendak has been so involved with music that he often marked up the margins of his drawings with notes on what he’d been listening to at the time.

That practice led to perhaps the most fascinating part of the exhibition. Hung on the wall are various illustrations with these margin notes (the indecipherable handwriting is translated). As you examine the artwork, you can press a button on a nearby computer screen to listen to the very piece that inspired Sendak — and see if you can hear links between the music and what’s on the page. Also provided is a laminated sheet containing a number of musicians’ detailed reactions as they made the comparison themselves.

Music also has a direct influence on his work, particularly where rhythm is concerned. For children, one plaque noted, music is everywhere, “from television shows and classroom rhymes to made-up verses and random whistling.” Sendak has been inspired by children’s relationship to music, and uses it in his books, employing rhythmic words on the page to capture children’s imaginations. The exhibit contains a number of drafts of his writing in which he worked out the right rhythms to use.

Seeing the artist’s handwriting with no illustrations provides a particular sense of intimacy with the work: it’s as if you’re in the studio with him, watching a project develop. The feeling of intimacy is heightened by the fact that the exhibit is in a small side room — and when I was there, I was the only one. Visit the exhibit to get up close and personal with another side of Sendak.

Tues.-Sun. through Aug. 7, $5-$10, Rosenbach Museum & Library, 2008-2010 Delancey Place, rosenbach.org.

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