Columbus art museum debuts major Maurice Sendak exhibit

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Most people today know artist Maurice Sendak as the creator of children's book classics such as “Where the Wild Things Are” and “In the Night Kitchen.” A new exhibition of his work looks at that reputation and a less well-known side of his immense output: his work as a designer for opera, theater, film, and television.

“We wanted people to understand that Maurice was actually a serious artist,” said Lynn Caponera, executive director of the Maurice Sendak Foundation in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Though most knew him as an illustrator and picture book artist, “they didn’t see beyond the fact that he did a lot more than that,” she said.

“Wild Things are Happening” opened this month at the Columbus Museum of Art and runs through March 5, 2023. It's the first major retrospective of Sendak’s work since his 2012 death and the largest and most complete to date.

The exhibit takes its name from a 1990s advertising campaign Sendak did for Bell Atlantic that featured Wild Things characters promoting “a fast, dependable Internet service.”

The exhibit features more than 150 sketches, storyboards and paintings of work Sendak did for his own books, including “Higglety Pigglety Pop!,” which he based on the fatal sickness of his beloved Sealyham terrier Jennie. The show also displays some of Sendak's most celebrated illustrations of other writers’ work, such as Else Holmelund Minarik’s “Little Bear” books.

To commemorate Sendak's affinity for Mickey Mouse — who first appeared in 1928, the year Sendak was born — the exhibit includes an illustration that TV Guide commissioned in 1978 for Mickey Mouse's 50th birthday featuring Sendak, also 50, waving at a mirror as the cartoon character waves back.

In the late 1970s, Sendak embarked on a second career as a costume and...