Whitworth Art Gallery, UK will present an exhibition named 'Sleeping Beauties: Walter Crane and the Illustrated Book'. It will run through February 2008.
Spanning the career of the artist and designer Walter Crane, this exhibition presents the book illustrations of this prolific and much-loved artist. A broad selection from the archive includes Crane's early commissions as well as original drawings for his famous Toy Book illustrations, flower books and political cartoons.
The intriguing and poignant life of Walter Crane is referenced by personal correspondence, photographs and hand-written journals. Evidence of Crane's own story is placed alongside fairy-tale imagery, traditional stories and the private picture books created for his own children.
The exhibition highlights various themes evident within Crane's practice, including his aspirations for political and social reform as reflected in Crane's vision of a picture-book utopia. His position as a leading figure of the aesthetic movement is explored through his imagery, as is his belief in the redemptive power of good design. The legacy of Walter Crane has a contemporary resonance, as his influence upon imagery and printing methods is evident in modern book illustration.
Themes such as industrialisation, vegetarianism and man's relationship to the environment are explored in Crane's picture books and give today's audience an insight into how these issues, still highly relevant today, were regarded in the nineteenth century. -- www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk
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