Original Art by Edward Gorey

I recently added two pieces of original art by Edward Gorey to my collection. This exciting pair of unfinished pieces with a Christmas theme was obviously intended to be a front and rear cover of...something? The lightly penciled in guide lines indicate a place for a title above each image and the artist has sketched in EDWARD GOREY below each drawing. The drawing style and characters pictured firmly indicate that this pair of drawings was executed in or around 1990. The large 8" x 8" image size and formal lettering suggests these pieces were going to be covers for a book or possibly a boxed set of books. 

The central feature of both drawings is a pair of leafless tree trunks that have grown together to form an arch. In a typical Gorey visual turn, the front and rear covers show views of the same arch from opposite sides, but the rest of the details have changed. The front cover has had more finish work completed, with the arch and several of the figures being completely finished. This pair of drawings is a fascinating study on how Edward Gorey approached a project. After sketching in the basics in pencil, he first inked a fine outline to define the main elements. 

On the front cover, a classic Gorey family consisting of a father, mother and baby in swaddling clothes. The woman (mother?) is busy making what we might assume to be a Christmas list. In her unfinished state, she has the appearance of a ghost or phantom, but Mr Gorey has simply not finished drawing her in completely.

Appearing to the left of the arch is a strange figure dressed in an apron, bowler hat, collar, cuffs, and shoes with white spats. It is unclear if this figure is otherwise clothed or naked. The face appears to be covered by the same skin tight fabric as the rest of their body. Edward Gorey often drew stealthy cat burglar figures covered from head to toe in a body stocking in this manner, so the identity of the figure is left to our imagination. Is the identity of this person a waiter, servant, entertainer, or that of a nefarious personage? This person's pose also indicates that they may have just thrown the fruitcake tied with a ribbon that is flying above the arch. The trailing ribbon indicates that the fruitcake is on a trajectory rather than floating or gently falling from the sky.

The central trio of well dressed children on the rear cover may or may not be related to the family on the front. A helpful robot and an alligator flank the arch, each supplied with footstools to extend their reach. All the figures on the rear cover are busy decorating the arch with Christmas ornaments. Edward Gorey has completed less line work on the rear cover, but what has been filled in is rather wonderful. Edward Gorey has fully rendered the alligator and the body of the robot. He had also begun to fill in the arch, but did not get very far.

What the project was or why it remains unfinished will probably never be known, but we can make a couple of guesses. The figures all relate to a suite of drawings Edward Gorey created for A Very Gorey Christmas in The New York Times Book Review (see my post from December 2, 2024 https://goreyana.blogspot.com/2024/12/a-gorey-christmas.html). Perhaps the publishers or Mr. Gorey himself intended to publish the illustrated writings but the project stalled.

Another amusing theory concerns the stain on the upper left corner of the drawing for the rear cover. Edward Gorey is on record as stating that he gave his cats free reign in the house and occasionally they would walk over his drawing table and spill the ink bottle, damaging a work in progress. This stain in the upper right hand corner certainly has the appearance of a cat-spill, and even though the black ink did not encroach into the image area it may have been enough to halt the drawing. We shall never know.

 

Happy Birthday Edward Gorey!

 

Happy 101st Birthday!

Edward Gorey was born on February 22, 1925. Celebrate his birthday by pulling out your favorite Gorey volume and reading it aloud with exaggerated gestures while enjoying a Gin & Tonic (a favorite drink of Mr. Gorey) or some blue food (aspic, perhaps?). I know Mr. Gorey does not like the Birthday Crown, but I am making him wear it again this year!

The Final Week

If you have forgotten, been putting it off, or just figured you would get to it sometime before it closes, the deadline has crept up! 

Something Else Entirely, The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey will close at the end of this week. Visit the Society of Illustrators in New York City this Wednesday through Saturday to view more than 100 original works of art by Edward Gorey. You may even run into co-curator Russell Lehrer during your visit. In addition to being a major lender to the exhibition, Mr. Lehrer has been the acting Master of Ceremonies for the show, giving engaging tours of the works on display. 

A Switch Up On Summer Switch

 

Author, screenwriter and composer Mary Rogers (1931 - 2014) published three books for young readers with cover designs created by Edward Gorey. Collectively known as the Andrews trilogy, the stories follow the magical adventures of the Andrews family. 

The trilogy includes Freaky Friday (1972), A Billion for Boris (1974), and Summer Switch (1982). Freaky Friday was turned into a movie both in 1977 and again in 2003. The covers designed by Edward Gorey are colorful, lively, and invite the potential reader to pick them up. Like the Bellairs book series, the Andrews trilogy is much beloved series by readers of a certain age who fondly remember the stories, and especially the Gorey covers. 

Recently, a friend let me know that he acquired an unrecorded early cover variant for Summer Switch. At first glance the difference appears to just be the background color, but on closer inspection it can be seen that the name of the summer camp on the boy's t-shirt has been changed.

Camp Soonawissakit is the name of the camp as it appears in both printings of the book. It can be assumed that Edward Gorey misread or didn't double check the name of the camp in the manuscript and that the art directors and editors didn't catch the mistake until the book was actually in print. Unfortunately, the original artwork is unknown at this point, so it cannot be checked to see if Gorey himself changed the camp name or (more likely) someone at the published made the correction.

Whoever caught the mistake, the color of the book was also changed to bright green after the initial printing. These kind of printing variants are what keeps book collectors searching used & rare bookstores and on-line sellers for that rare volume to add to their collections.
 

A Few Words On The Something Else Entirely Exhibiiton

Something Else Entirely; The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey at The Society of Illustrators, is a centennial exhibition that celebrates Edward Gorey’s unique relationships with literature and the authors who create it. Mounting this exhibition has been a monumental undertaking that would not have been possible without the dedication and combined efforts of The Society of Illustrators, the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, and the cooperation of five collectors who lent pieces for the show. Originally scheduled to close on January 3, 2026, the exhibition has been extended and will now terminate on February 7, 2026.

As one of the four curators (and a lender) for the exhibition, I have been intimately involved with the planning and execution of this show from the beginning. It was the intention that fellow curator/collector Russell Lehrer and myself would give a guided tour of the show at the October 16th opening celebration. With over 1100 patrons flooding the building, the crowd quickly became so great that the scheduled gallery tour had to be cancelled. This exhibition set a new opening night attendance record at the Society. Fortunately, since the show's opening Mr. Lehrer has been able to guide numerous tours of the exhibition throughout the run. In the spirit of what might have been, I offer my personal introduction to the exhibition below.

Something Else Entirely, The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey 

Edward Gorey understood that books are more than just a conveyance for ideas, they are objects that a reader interacts with intimately. Reading a book requires a commitment of both time and intellectual energy; holding books close and turning the pages, unlocking their secrets and discovering the stories they tell. Experiencing a book with illustrations can deepen and enhance these connections.

Gorey was able to deftly create a single cover image or illuminate a manuscript with a series of wittily insightful drawings. Something Else Entirely is the first exhibition of Edward Gorey’s work that focuses solely on art created for authors other than himself. The 106 pieces included in this exhibition follow the progression of Gorey’s illustration work over his 50 year professional career. Many of the pieces included in the exhibition are on loan from private collectors and are being publicly displayed for the first time. 

Edward Gorey was an artistic genius who combined his talent for drawing and deep love of literature into a life-long career as a commercial illustrator. Gorey spent the first decade of his career working in the art departments of Anchor Books and The Looking Glass Library, honing his skills while he learned the ins and outs of the publishing business. Gorey then became an in-demand freelance illustrator whose commercial work allowed him to be an author and illustrator of his own works, which were often self-published. This exhibition sidesteps those classic pieces to focus on the lesser known images he created for a dizzying variety of authors and publications.

Edward Gorey was a cultural omnivore who brought wit and humor to his illustrations, often in unexpected ways. Gorey responded to the stories he was hired to illuminate by inserting his own visual references into the illustrations, adding depth to the texts from his own unique perspective. For some books, like The Very Fine Clock by Muriel Spark, (published by A.A. Knopf, 1968), Gorey adds so much subtext to the drawings that he seems at times to be illustrating a completely different tale. For others, like Rumplestiltskin (retold by Edith Tarkov, published by Scholastic Books, 1972) and Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats (by T.S. Eliot, published by Harcourt Brace Janovich, 1982), Gorey’s amusing illustrations add whimsy and a sense of playfulness to the texts.

This exhibition includes many rarities such as the original art for Edward Gorey’s first published commerical illustration – a cover design for the May 1950 commencement issue of The Harvard Advocate (shown above). Continuing through highlights of his work from the next 50 years, the exhibit ends with the final piece of original art to leave Gorey’s drawing table in early 2000 – a cover design for Sarah Caudwell’s murder mystery The Sybil in Her Grave (published by Delacorte Press, 2000, shown below). 

When sitting down with a book that has illustrations, the reader looks first at the artwork, then reads the words.

The two pieces in the exhibition from The Haunted Looking Glass (various authors, published by The Looking Glass Library, 1959) show Gorey’s command of pen & ink to create moody, atmospheric images. For The Haunted Looking Glass, Gorey was given free reign to chose twelve classic horror stories and provide a full page title illustration for each.  Gorey knew that the readers would first encounter the drawing for each story and search the image for clues to what lay ahead. He stated that creating art for this book was particularly challenging because he wanted to intrigue the reader but didn’t want to give anything away.

Viewing original art by Edward Gorey is a visceral experience. When printed in a book, illustrations become part of the book and often lose the three dimensional quality present in the actual drawings. Black and white illustrations become the same uniform tone of black as the type when printed, whereas looking at the original art the viewer becomes aware of how Gorey created the piece, noting the ways in which the ink interacts with the surface of the paper.

In areas of dense crosshatching, the surface of the paper becomes scarred by the pen nib and buckles slightly as the ink soaks into the paper itself, creating a deeper tone of blackness from the surrounding ink lines. Fine lines sit lightly, almost floating on the surface, indicating that the pen nib barely touched the paper. Ink washes applied with a paint brush become three dimensional puddles of color that have variations showing how the ink overlaps on itself as it was painted onto the surface. These inky pools of color become one flat tone of black when printed, but have the vibrancy of the artist's touch on the original artwork. The illustration for Growltiger's Last Stand from Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats is a master class showing all of Gorey's pen and ink techniques effortlessly combined into a single drawing.

Gorey’s use of color can be breathtakingly subtle. Although he often claimed self-deprecatingly that he wasn’t much of a colorist and painted in muted tones, pieces like Lilliput (unpublished magazine cover circa 1950 - 1953) and Sam and Emma (author Donald Nelsen, published by Parents' Magazine Press 1971, shown above) demonstrate a sophisticated colorist who knew how to employ color to move the viewer’s eye around an image. 

Gorey was also fond of intensely lurid colors and used them to great effect. The cover painting for Is by Joan Aiken (the 9th book in the Wolves series, published by Yearling in 1992), is almost literally ablaze with intense oranges, and the five pieces created for TV Guide magazine (various dates including the pig picnic shown below) demonstrate how Gorey would use intense color to enliven and punch up an image.

Something Else Entirely, The Illustration Art Of Edward Gorey covers a wide variety of subjects and provides a rare opportunity to view the range of Edward Gorey’s consummate ability and creativity as an artist and working illustrator. His skill at creating intriguing and beautiful images is amply demonstrated by the pieces on display in the show, and his drawings often lead the viewer to consider...something else entirely. This seminal retrospective of Gorey's illustration career is on display through the beginning of February. 

The Society of Illustrators is located at 128 E 63rd St, New York, NY 10065 check their website for admission prices and hours. 

https://societyillustrators.org

 Images and photographs courtesy The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust, Irwin Terry, and Russell Lehrer.

Merry Christmas from Goreyana

 

Merry Christmas!

from

Goreyana 

Something Else Entirely Exhibition Has Been Extended

Something Else Entirely, The Illustration Art of Edward Gorey, the seminal exhibition at the Society of Illustrators in New York City has been extended for an extra month. Originally set to close January 3, the exhibition will now be on display through Saturday February 7, 2026. For more information, including special events related to eht exhibition, hours and admission go HERE.