The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art’s exhibit of Those Telling Lines: the Art of Virginia Lee Burton celebrates the centenary of her birth and offers a rare opportunity to see both the original art she created for her picture books and the designs she created for fabrics.
Virginia Lee Burton (1909-1968) is best remembered as an award-winning author and illustrator of children’s books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939), The Little House (1942), Katy and the Big Snow (1943), and Song of Robin Hood (1947).
Burton’s picture books often emphasize the continued utility and adaptability of older machines—and the traditions they represent—in a modern and fast-paced world, and a complementary sense of activity and industry fills her detailed illustrations.
In addition to her work in children’s literature, Burton was also a designer, painter, print maker, and an integral member of the Folly Cove Designers, a collective of artists who created printed fabrics using hand-carved linoleum blocks.
Through this often forgotten group, Burton produced fabrics with elaborate patterns, designs, and even pictorial story lines that are as delightful and as distinctive as her children’s books, though far less well known. This exhibition is curated by Barbara Elleman.
Support for the exhibition Those Telling Lines: The Art of Virginia Lee Burton has been provided in part by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It will be on view through June 21, 2009. -- www.picturebookart.org
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