Edward Gorey's Eerie Art

november 5, 2022 - February 12, 2023

 The Cartoon Art Museum hosts Edward Gorey's Eerie Art, an exhibit featuring original artwork and limited edition serigraphs by celebrated author and artist Edward Gorey.

Author and artist Edward St. John Gorey (1925-2000) was well known for depicting children as victims of trauma and violence in his books, such as The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Hapless Child, and The Pious Infant, as well as in his fine art prints. However, there are numerous instances of his youngsters also enjoying their playtime and innocent adventures, as in his engaging illustrations for the Donald or Treehorn stories, The Lavender Leotard, or a special commission drawn for General Motors’ Friends magazine, included in this exhibit.

“If you saw only these five works of art by Edward Gorey, you’d have a good idea why he was sometimes referred to as the ‘Master of the Macabre’ — a sobriquet he firmly rejected," notes collector and historian Macolm Whyte, the founder of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum. "Nevertheless, it appears that Gorey didn’t work very hard resisting that chilling title. In 1959, his very first book, The Beastly Baby, was published. His grandly sinister sets for the 1977 restaging of Dracula on Broadway won international acclaim. His fans got their first thrill from his ominous animated introduction to PBS-TV’s Mystery! in 1980. The Haunted Tea Cosy, Gorey’s spirited take-off on Charles Dickens’s ghost story, A Christmas Carol, was published in 1997, three years before his death.

“Yes, Gorey loved to send a shiver down his readers’ spines. And why not? He does it so well and so beautifully." So, please enjoy his uncanny drawing and painting here. Rarely on public view, this is our Halloween treat for you.”

About Edward Gorey

A truly prodigious and original artist, Edward St. John Gorey (1925-2000), gave to the world over one hundred works, including The Gashlycrumb Tinies, The Doubtful Guest and The Wuggly Ump; prize-winning set and costume designs for innumerable theater productions from Cape Cod to Broadway; a remarkable number of illustrations in publications such as The New Yorker and The NewYork Times, and in books by a wide array of authors from Charles Dickens to Edward Lear, Samuel Beckett, John Updike, Virginia Woolf, H.G. Wells, Florence Heide and many others.  His well known animated credits for the PBS Mystery! series have introduced him to millions of television viewers.  Gorey's masterful pen and ink illustrations and his ironic, offbeat humor have brought him critical acclaim and an avid following throughout the world.