It’s fitting that the final booking on the four-stop touring exhibit dedicated to artist and author Edward Gorey ends at the Boston Athenæum. The Chicago native, who was born in 1925, lived in New York City, where he began as an illustrator before creating off-kilter tales like “The Gashlycrumb Tinies,” “The Unstrung Harp” and “The Gilded Bat.” However, the highly individual artist was educated at Harvard and chose to spend his final years living on Cape Cod, where he died in 2000.
But, of course, the main reason the Athenæum brought in the exhibition is Gorey’s incredibly detailed and characterful work.
“Immediately, I saw it as something that would have great appeal for us,” says David B. Dearinger, the Athenæum’s art curator.
The exhibit culls nearly 200 pieces from the Gorey Charitable Trust. One inclusion of note is the envelopes from letters Gorey wrote his mother, which he illustrated. Gorey saw any blank space as something to be filled with his imagination.
“That certainly seems to be true. They are so personal,” says Dearinger of the envelopes, “and so charming and unique.”
