Amherst Museum Exhibit Explores Art Of Tony DiTerlizzi

Inspired by Museum Director Nick Clark’s sneak peek at early plans for The Spiderwick Chronicles movie (coming February 15, 2008), the exhibition will run through January 27, 2008 and is the first of two exhibitions The Carle will feature as part of the Museums10 Pioneer Valley-wide cross-promotional cultural tourism initiative, BookMarks: A Celebration of the Art of the Book.

Curated by The Spiderwick Chonicles production designer, Academy Award nominee Jim Bissell, the exhibition combines DiTerlizzi’s imaginative and masterful renderings of the natural and unnatural world with the film production team’s extraordinary interpretation of that creative vision. Says Nick Clark, Founding Director of the Carle, “I knew from the earliest discussions of Bookmarks that I wanted to do something with Tony’s extraordinary art for this series. When Tony arranged for me to visit the Paramount Studios to see some of the production design by one of the masters in the profession, Jim Bissell, I knew immediately that the concept for the exhibition had to be amplified.”

The exhibition considers six major themes, from introducing the history and ongoing fascination with fairy tales to examining the evolution of DiTerlizzi’s art for the books and culminating field guide. Other sections articulate how the artist’s illusionistic, yet two- dimensional drawings, get transformed into “actual” characters moving through “actual” space. Flat-screen monitors show the iteration from drawing to clay models [several of which are on view] to the animated form for the big screen. Whether book or movie, the common thread is the extraordinary research, attention to detail, artistry and craftsmanship that goes into bringing each finished product to fruition.

“This process—first the realization of our vision for the books, and now their painstaking and breathtaking translation to the big screen—has been wonderfully overwhelming,” states DiTerlizzi, “This exhibition proves to every kid out there that what you dream can come to life, and that imagination rules.”

The educational approach at The Carle, with its commitment to bringing the visual and verbal into balance, constitutes a harmonious reinforcement of what DiTerlizzi and Black achieve in their engrossing series of books for young readers. The story tells of three siblings—twins Jared and Simon Grace and their older sister Mallory—who are normal children thrown into a highly abnormal world of faeries, sprites, boggarts, and all creatures that go bump in the night. The Graces are cast into this otherworldly existence when they move, with their mother, to the estate of their ancestor/grandfather/great-uncle, Arthur Spiderwick, whose field guide that they discover unleashes various adventures and misadventures. Incidentally, the name Arthur serves as an homage to Arthur Rackham, the esteemed British illustrator who sits very high in DiTerlizzi’s Pantheon of artists he admires.

An example of Rackham’s work, Three Heads in the Well, a gift to the Museum from Kendra and Allan Daniel, constitutes part of the prologue. The exhibition Spiderwick: From Page to Screen has been generously underwritten by Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies, and by a grant from Triad Foundation, Inc. Additional support has been provided by Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. -- www.picturebookart.org