Chris VanAllsburg Drawings

Another Place, Another Time: Chris VanAllsburg Drawings

October 6, 2007 - January 20, 2007

Another Place Another Time: Chris Van Allsburg Drawings is an exhibition of seventy-seven drawings spanning Van Allsburg’s extraordinary career as an author and illustrator. Executed in pen and ink, charcoal, carbon pencil, colored pencil, conté pencil, oil pastel, and watercolor, the drawings represent over twenty-five years of work on more than twenty books for young people that evoke mystery, wonder, and delight. The precision and delicacy of the drawings as well as their variety of perspective draw the viewer into Van Allsburg’s world of flying beds, magic gardens, board games that come to life, and midnight trains to the North Pole.

Chris Van Allsburg is one of Grand Rapids most famous natives. He has written and illustrated sixteen books since his first publication in 1979 and illustrated books by other authors as well. His first book The Garden of Abdul Gasazi won the Caldecott Honor Medal and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award. He received two more Caldecott Medals for Jumanji and The Polar Express, both of which were adapted as feature films. Jumanji also won the National Book Award and Van Allsburg himself has been awarded the Regina Medal for lifetime achievement in children’s literature.

Another Place, Another Time, the title of the exhibition, is a drawing from Van Allsburg’s fifth book project The Mysteries of Harry Burdick published in 1984. The Museum’s collection includes another drawing from the book, Just Desert.

Another Place, Another Time:
Chris VanAllsburg Drawings is sponsored by:

Barnes & Thornburg, LLP
JC Huizenga