Inside the world of Maurice Sendak: artist, collector, connoisseur  

The extraordinary work of Maurice Sendak needs little introduction, since it forms part of the childhood memories of millions around the globe. Over his more than 60-year career as an artist and author, selling more than 50 million books, he produced treasured titles such as Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, amongst many others. Whilst his work no doubt inspired children the world over to take up pen, pencil and crayon to create their own fantastical creatures, where did Sendak find his inspiration? Which artists stimulated and informed his artistic vision?

A look inside his remarkable assemblage of art and objects provides some clues to this fascinating question. This June, Christie’s will offer a selection of works from the artist and author’s personal collection in Maurice Sendak: Artist, Collector, Connoisseur.  Led by two seldom-seen William Blake illuminated books, the live auction on 10 June and online sale (29 May – 12 June) encompass rare prints, fine art, decorative objects and memorabilia, many of which Sendak lived with. The sale proceeds will benefit The Maurice Sendak Foundation, which hosts an annual fellowship program for artists working in illustration.

‘He was a passionate, smart, deliberate collector,’ says Lynn Caponera, Executive Director of The Sendak Foundation. She and the foundation’s Curator, Jonathan Weinberg, met Sendak when they were children and became part of his extended family. She was his assistant and close friend for forty years. Both Caponera and Weinberg had ample opportunity to watch him work surrounded by the extraordinary art he collected in his studio in Ridgefield, Connecticut, from 1972 to his death. ‘Through collecting, he was able to assemble a wealth of inspiration for his work with a league of artists whom he thought of as his closest companions.’

The dance of text and image

Sendak was a life-long collector. As a child, he would keep and treasure the free Mickey Mouse bisque figurines picked up on outings to the movies. Early in his career he worked as a window designer for FAO Schwarz, where he met the editor Ursula Nordstrom, who commissioned him to illustrate his first children’s book. In his twenties he began acquiring rarities from second-hand bookstores and print shops — an early trip to Paris with his partner, Eugene Glynn, yielded affordable works by Toulouse-Lautrec, Vallotton, and Bonnard. However, it was the extraordinary success of Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963, that allowed him to make his first major purchases, including the majestic watercolour St. Paul Landing in Italy, by Samuel Palmer.

He became passionate about Palmer’s work, and began collecting his late etchings seriously around the time he was working on Higglety Pigglety Pop! Sendak used Palmer’s work as a model for the delicate crosshatching of the book’s marvelous illustrations. ‘I think Sendak found Palmer to be a kindred spirit in many ways, and his depiction of idyllic landscapes in particular really had a profound and long-lived effect – you can see echoes of it throughout his work. You only have to look at the landscape backgrounds of Outside Over There to see his debt to Palmer’ explains Richard Lloyd, International Head of the Prints at Christie’s.

‘Illustration is like dance,’ Sendak once wrote. ‘It should move like — and to — music.’ He possessed an extensive collection of classical music, particularly Schubert, Verdi, Mahler and, most of all, Mozart, which played constantly as he worked. His aim was to unite both aspects of his craft – weaving together image and written word. He felt that at its best, an illustrated book required an implicit understanding of the interconnectedness of all art forms.

Amongst Sendak’s most cherished possessions were two works that sit at the pinnacle of this category: a copy of Blake’s Songs of Innocence, printed by the author in 1789, and the first printing of Songs of Experience, from 1794. Innocence is the lovely Grabhorn-Berland copy, printed in green ink and delicately coloured. Experience, the Ozias Humphry copy, is one of only four known copies from the first printing and the only one remaining in private hands.

Nourishment for a curious mind

Sendak’s indefatigable imagination drew inspiration from artists ranging from Beatrix Potter to Rembrandt van Rijn, Paul Cezanne and Albrecht Dürer in addition to English art of the eighteenth century. He held Walt Disney in high regard, joking that his love of Mickey Mouse stemmed from the fact that they were both born in 1928. ‘He made no distinction between so-called popular art and fine art. What mattered to him was a work’s intrinsic quality and liveliness,’ says Weinberg.

The artist’s approach to collecting reflected his own creative practice and projects. ‘He bought Mickey Mouse memorabilia and Winsor McCay art when he was working on In the Night Kitchen,’ Weinberg explains. ‘Blake, Runge and Fuseli when he worked on The Magic Flute and Outside Over There.’

Furthermore, collecting was often his response to artists who shared the same thoughts and inspirations as he did. This explains his love of the British painter George Stubbs. ‘He owned almost every print Stubbs personally etched and engraved,’ Weinberg notes. ‘For Sendak, Stubbs was a model for how to render animals with scientific accuracy and yet imbue them with human emotions and empathy.’ Similarly, it explains his devotion to Beatrix Potter, whose books and pictures he collected religiously. Like Stubbs and Potter before him, the creator of Where the Wild Things Are knew how to depict animals that had humanity and empathy.

Mentoring the next generation

Sendak delighted in sharing his collection with friends, family and visitors to his Ridgefield studio and home. ‘Listening to Maurice talk about Palmer or Stubbs or Blake, you would feel as though Maurice actually knew them,’ Caponera says.

It was with this desire to share knowledge and mentor the next generation of great artists that Sendak worked with Caponera and the photographer Dona Ann McAdams to found the Sendak Fellowship in 2009.  Now in its 16th year, the program under the directorship of Caldecott winning illustrator Doug Salati — himself a former Sendak Fellow — provides a residency at the Sendak House and Archive for promising illustrators to live and work in the setting that fueled Sendak’s creativity for four decades. Proceeds of this sale will allow a new generation of artists and illustrators to draw their own inspiration from the idyllic setting and extensive collection of Sendak’s work being preserved there in perpetuity.