›› View List of Selected Artists (PDF)
›› About Picture This!
›› Juror’s Statement
›› Exhibition Catalog (PDF)
September 9, 2012 – December 2, 2012
About Picture This!
Picture This! is Danforth Art’s second annual juried exhibition showcasing new and original artwork created by picture book illustrators. Selected works will be exhibited in our Children’s Gallery, which is dedicated to the art of picture book illustration, from September 9 – November 4, 2012.
Juror’s Statement
All of the illustrations in Picture This! have a story to tell. The viewer has only to take a careful look at these delightful images and let the magic begin. Children’s book illustration works most often with a brief amount of text to produce a seamless mesh of words and images that is greater than the sum of its parts. The artists’ works shown in this remarkable exhibit do this by developing characters and worlds, using a wide variety of media and sensibilities. One can easily imagine these individual pieces as part of a sequence of images carried over the thirty-two pages most commonly allotted to the traditional picture book form. It has been said that a picture book is most like a small play, and as you enjoy these works, you feel the lively narrative that is starting to play out from within each one of them.
Remember too, that the picture book is most often the first meeting a child has with artwork of any kind, and how important it is for all artists who work with the picture book to bring to it their highest level of quality and craft. The treasure trove of artwork exhibited here more than confirms this requirement.
It has been a pleasure to curate this show and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Katherine French, director, Jessica Roscio, associate curator, and the Danforth Art staff for creating this opportunity and enabling artists from near and far to showcase their fine work.
Carol Goldenberg, juror for this year’s show, studied illustration at RISD and after graduation worked as a book designer at David R. Godine and Houghton Mifflin Company before becoming art director of Houghton’s Children’s Books. Carol was also art director at Clarion Books, a children’s imprint of Houghton Mifflin in New York City. She is currently a freelance children’s book designer, and her book designs have won numerous awards from the AIGA, The New England Book Show, and other juried exhibitions. She has designed five Caldecott Medal winning picture books and one Caldecott honor book. Carol writes articles, teaches, and lectures widely on the art of children’s book design.