Wondering Where The Wild Things Are? They’re At The Denver Art Museum

A "wild rumpus" is taking place at the Denver Art Museum and you are invited. Through February 17, 2025, "Wild Things: The Art of Maurice Sendak," spotlights the iconic 1963 children's book written and illustrated by Sendak, "Where the Wild Things Are."

In it, a naughty boy–Max–is sent to bed without supper. Confined to his bedroom, wearing a white wolf suit, he imagines sailing to a world with monstrous creatures. Upon arriving, they make him his king and embark on adventures.

The book was an instant smash, becoming a timeless classic.

It won the Caldecott medal in 1964 as the most distinguished American picture book for children. A BBC Culture poll in 2023 ranked it the greatest children's book ever.

Sendak (1928–2012) achieves this in roughly 100 words.

"The beauty of the drawings, I think that's something you immediately get," Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the Denver Art Museum and co-curator of the exhibition, told Forbes.com. "These monsters are funny and not terribly scary, honestly, more like you could laugh with them, or about them, and their big toes, their big teeth and big eyes."

Demonstrative of the book's global appeal, Heinrich had the book read to him as a child in Germany. The title translating to "Where the Wild Guys Live." He subsequently read it to his son.

"I use that term almost never, but I think he's a genius," Heinrich said. "He is somebody who has the ability to condense the wisdom of life, the essence of observing what's going on around him, into the moment of a drawing, into a figure, into a person, into a characteristic look on a face, or into an encounter between two beings on a piece of paper. That is what makes his work so special."

Maurice Sendak: Author

The Denver exhibition details a great deal more than "Where the Wild Things Are," beginning with Sendak's own childhood growing up in Brooklyn with Jewish immigrant parents from Poland. It was here where his spectacular imagination was formed. Fantastic stories told by his father, and frightening visits from relatives.

"He compares in several of his interviews the 'Wild Things' with his relatives, and he gives them even names that refer to his aunt, his uncles. He remembers when they came to visit they would have terrible teeth, and they would have hairs coming out their noses, and they would cuddle (the kids) and nip them in the cheeks and say, 'Oh, you're so cute, I could eat you up,'" Heinrich explains. "He often says this was–of course for him as a kid–a little bit scary since (the relatives) ate everything when they came–they were usually pretty hungr–the kids didn't necessarily feel safe and thought, 'Well, maybe they mean it?'"

Another of Sendak's classics, "Outside Over There," features in the exhibition. Like "Wild Things," its origins can be found in upsetting childhood memories.

"When the kid of the of the pilot Charles Lindbergh got kidnapped, and (Maurice) was probably four or five years old, that was the thing that America talked about, and every day it would be on the radio and in the headlines. As a kid, he saw that and thought–I'm just quoting Sendak–he said, 'If this kid, which has a dad who's Captain Marvel and mom who is the beauty princess, and white, and blue eyed, and even this kid is not safe, then what about me, a little Jewish immigrant from Brooklyn, how will I ever be safe'" Heinrich said. "This almost trauma of this whole story, which ended terribly, was something that never left him."

The Lindbergh's 20-month-old son was found murdered near the family's New Jersey mansion where the baby had been kidnapped.

"That's something that makes Sendak so special. Often, there is really a dark layer to the stories. It is not just silly and fun and funny, but often touches on the big topics of life," Heinrich said. "It touches on love and life and longing and belonging and being safe and being unsafe, being haunted by the past, and of course, deals often with death, something which probably was by adults often seen as maybe scary for kids. Several of his books were controversial among adults."

Sendak's editor Ursula Nordstrom described "Where the Wild Things Are" to The New Yorker as, "the first American picture book for children to recognize that children have powerful emotions...".

"He never tried to write books for kids. That was never his intention," Heinrich explains. "He wrote books, and that was his art medium. It was not painting. It was not sculpture. It was the book, but he was not intentionally doing something that he thinks kids would enjoy, he was doing this like an artist–because he had to do it, and it was in his head, and he wanted to get it out on paper. That's a very artistic process."

Maurice Sendak: Artist

The Denver Art Museum's exhibition expands on a presentation debuted at the Columbus Museum of Art in 2022. A full 450 items from tiny, postage-stamp size sketches to giant theater set piece designs are on view.

Following the success of "Where the Wild Things Are," Sendak embarked on a second career as a stage designer and producer for theater productions including "The Magic Flute" and "The Nutcracker" throughout the 1980s. He collaborated with many of the greatest writers, directors and composers of his time. Included are sketches for the set designs of the "Where the Wild Things Are" opera and costumes for the live-action, feature-length film.

Among many other highlights, the exhibition will feature the first presentation of all the original paintings for "Where the Wild Things Are" and significant additional loans from The Morgan Library & Museum in New York and Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

Yes, paintings.

"Where the Wild Things Are's" illustrations appear to be drawings, but they didn't start that way.

"Technically, you would say mixed media nowadays," Heinrich explains. "They're little watercolor paintings, and then ink cross hatching, and in some cases, you see pencil as well. He used whatever was there and whatever he needed and did not stick with one medium. They're so intricate and so precise, like the cross hatching, you only can do this with an ink quill because it's so sharp, you couldn't do it with a brush."

Finished illustrations appear animated, light, lively, spontaneous. Their production was the opposite.

"Sendak was a very careful, very slow worker," Heinrich said. "He prepared everything in hundreds of sketches. It's not that he would sit down and just do the drawings and then be done with it."

Thanks to Sendak's meticulous preservation of a vast quantity of his artistry from a 60-year career, and the Maurice Sendak Foundation's ongoing conservation of this material, items on view in the exhibition clearly detail how ideas evolved from the artist's head to the page.

Sendak's versatility was another of his greatest strengths.

"He doesn't settle on a style. It's not that he develops a style, let's say, with the 'Wild Things,' and says, 'Okay, here's my style, and from here on, I can take whatever content, but I just pour it into the matrix of my style,'" Heinrich said. "For every project that he does, he invents a new visual language and a new way, a new approach to watercolor, to painting, to drawing."

Consider "Higglety Pigglety Pop! or There Must Be More to Life," Sendak's next book following "Where the Wild Things Are."

"It looks like a Victorian drawing book, how they did in the 19th century with these cross-hatching etchings which were actually used for newspaper publication," Heinrick said. "He animates this technique to do these incredible, precious, beautiful, intricate drawings of the story of this little dog Jenny."

Another story drawn from a painful memory, this one, as an adult.

"Jenny goes out on a quest because her question is, 'there must be more to life than having everything,' which is as well, a very adult question. I doubt that any kid ever would ask themselves that, because as a kid, you want everything, right," Henrich continues. "That dog is a reflection of (Sendak's) dog, his very beloved dog by the name Jenny."

Jenny died around the time Sendak was working on the book, and it's a rumination on the hereafter. What is death?

Heavy material for a children's book. Uplifting in Sendak's hands.

"At the end of the book, the dog writes to her master that he doesn't need to be worried, and that she's in a good place, and that she's part of the Mother Goose Royal Theater now and plays the important role of the lead, the dog that eats the mop," Heinrich said. "That's this nursery rhyme, "Higglety pigglety pop, the dog has eaten the mop,' and the mop is made of salami. Has there ever been a more wonderful description of the hereafter?"

A smile through tears.

Now is an especially great time to visit the Denver Art Museum. In addition to Maurice Sendak, DAM presents a special exhibition of Alma Thomas' vivid paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum through January 12, 2025. A compelling glimpse into life during Japanese internment in America via Tokio Ueyama can be seen through June 1, 2025. Opening on November 17, 2024, arguably the nation's greatest living photographer, Dawoud Bey , takes center stage.

When the four shows are on display simultaneously, it will represent the finest special exhibition program at any museum in the country. An astonishing assemblage.

If visiting Denver, consider staying at Hotel Clio in toney Cherry Creek three miles from DAM downtown. The neighborhood recalls Scottsdale, AZ as a shopper's paradise with abundant high-end retail and dining.