Yale Bulletin and Calendar

August 26, 2005|Volume 34, Number 1

Mark Podwal's painting "Come and Read" is featured in Elie Wiesel's "King Solomon and His Magic Ring."

Sterling Library launches new
academic year with two exhibits

Two new exhibits are currently on display in the Sterling Memorial Library (SML): one featuring original works by renowned artist Mark Podwal and the other highlighting the distinctive German tradition of illustrated children's books from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Art by Mark Podwal

Original paintings, drawings and prints are featured in the exhibit "Illuminating Tales: The Art of Mark Podwal," on view through the end of October.

Podwal's drawings have appeared in The New York Times since 1972. He has authored and illustrated a number of books, including "Jerusalem Sky," "A Book of Hebrew Letters," "A Jewish Bestiary" and "A Sweet Year." He has collaborated with such authors as Elie Wiesel, Cynthia Ozick, Francine Klagsbrun and Francine Prose.

The exhibit includes a section highlighting some of the books Podwal illustrated for Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Weisel will offer remarks at a special reception celebrating the exhibit on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 4-5 p.m. in the SML lecture hall (enter on Wall Street).

Podwal's artistry was evident even as a child. As he has recounted, "It all started with an illness, perhaps just a 'bad cold' that caused me to miss the first days of kindergarten. As a result, my name was not on the class roster. When my teacher read out the attendance list, as she did every morning, my name was never called. Until the day my teacher noticed my drawing of a train, I was invisible to her. And so it seemed to me, at the age of five, that my existence depended on art."

While noted for his drawings and gouache acrylic paintings, Podwal has also been involved in special projects that include designs for the Congressional Gold Medal presented by President Reagan to Elie Wiesel, an Aubusson tapestry in collaboration with Gloria Ross for Temple Emanu-El in New York City and a seder plate for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His art has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Jewish Museum in Prague, the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art, among many others. He is represented by Forum Gallery and is currently being honored by Random House Publishers as the "Kid's Author Spotlight of the Month" for August 2005.

In addition to books featuring Podwal's illustrations, the exhibit also features other media to which his artwork as been adapted.

For further information about the exhibit or reception, contact Nanette Stahl at nannette.stahl@yale.edu or Jae Rossman at jae.rossman@yale.edu.

This illustration by Conrad Felixmüller for a children's book shows Felixmüller carving woodcut plates for the book, while his children look on.

Illustrated children's books

"The World in Pictures: Illustrated Children's Books in 19th-and Early 20th-Century Germany" is on display in the SML nave.

In Central Europe, the tradition of children's literature developed out of 17th-century utopian aspirations. A Moravian pastor and educator, Jan Komensky Comenius, believed not only that universal education would produce a utopian society, but also that aspiring learners needed to use their senses to observe objects before it would be possible to grasp them in words. His influential "Orbis Sensualism Pictus" (1658; translated into English in 1659 as "A World of Things Obvious to the Sense") developed a pedagogy through pictures and shaped a model of children's literature in which images played a central role.

Throughout the 19th century, illustrated books were considered a crucial means of socialization and political education. Illustrated fairy tales, both those collected by the Brothers Grimm and those composed by 19th- and early 20th-century authors are among the many examples of illustrated works produced during this time, some of which are on display in the exhibit. Some other examples on display include educational picture books, sentimental and instructive material, and the classic children's story "Struwwelpeter," with its alternately punitive and moralizing content.

The display concludes with the efflorescence of picture books during the early decades of the 20th century and considers the overlaps between visual modernism and children's literature.

The exhibit will be on view through the end of October. A public lecture titled "The Politics of Pictures Books: Illustrated Children's Literature in 19th- and Early 20th-Century Germany," will take place on Wednesday, Oct. 26, at 1 p.m. in the SML lecture hall.

The Sterling Library, 120 High St., is open Monday-Thursday, 8:30 a.m.-midnight; Friday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; and Sunday, 1 p.m.-midnight.

T H I SW E E K ' SS T O R I E S

Margaret Grey is named dean of School of Nursing

Benson to step down as dean of School of Art after this year

Team discovers new planet in the outer solar system

Grant will fund center for study of nervous system

Study: Alligator eggs show effect of oxygen on development

Yale Librarian Prochaska appointed to a second term

New master's program prepares nurses for leadership roles

Exhibit explores the 18th-century 'worlds' of Francis Wheatley

Private portrait miniatures showcase the faces of public figures

Gallery hosting festive open house . . .

Architecture gallery to feature traveling art show 'Ant Farm'

Sterling Library launches new academic year with two exhibits

Researchers create powerful tool for decoding gene functions

Galapagos tortoises more diverse than once believed, say scientists

Team identifies 'signatures' of protons in water

'Canary Database' shows animals offer health warnings for humans

Team digitally reconstructs long-extinct 'Lamp Shell'

'Gene trapping' reveals how flower development is controlled

Discovery may aid development of treatment for melanoma

Drinking alcohol may lower risk of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma

Lyme disease prevention program launched in Connecticut

For 35 students, summer was a time of service in New Haven

IN MEMORIAM

John Ostrom: He revolutionized field of paleontology

Robert Abelson: Psychologist was adviser to presidential candidates

Greer Allen: University printer was inspiration to School of Art students