How did Theodor Seuss Geisel create The Lorax? Well, that question can be answered by visiting THE LORAX Art Museum exhibit in Omaha, Nebraska that opens next week. While there, Dr. Seuss' fans will see the birth of this beloved Children’s picture book.

This special program will feature doodles, crayon drawings, and ink pieces that inspired the book. It will be on view at Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum from August 10th until November 3rd, 2013.

Here's a little bit more about the exhibit:

Published in 1971, before protecting the earth became a global concern, Dr. Seuss spoke through his character, the Lorax, who 'spoke for the trees,' warning against mindless progress and the danger it poses to the planet ... The color sketches and line art on view at the Joslyn Art Museum, along with the typewritten story Geisel affixed to the pages, provide a fascinating look at the early development of a Dr. Seuss classic.

For more information about both the exhibit and Joslyn Art Museum, please CLICK HERE!

CHARLES BURNS

COVER PORTRAITS FOR THE BELIEVER 2003-2013

+

BEFORE & AFTER PORTRAITS FROM BLACK HOLE

MAY 30 - JULY 26, 2013

Adam Baumgold Gallery presents an exhibition of portraits by Charles Burns that were published on the cover of The Believer magazine between 2003 and 2013. Using ink on paper in a strict 6 by 6 inch format, Burns creates endless variations of texture, lighting, and composition. His stark, black line offers a distinctive take on the tradition of portrait drawing. Over 300 drawings of artists, writers, musicians, animals, comic characters, and historical figures will be included.

Alongside this vast series of Believer portraits is a group of Before & After drawings from Charles Burns's seminal graphic novel Black Hole. In these comic grotesque portraits, themes of adolescent alienation and sexual awakening mingle with imagery of mutation, disease, and violence. Each smiling, yearbook-style portrait is accompanied by a Dorian Gray-like counterpart, picturing the same teenager with some troubling facial alteration.

Charles Burns’s drawings first reached a wider audience through the legendary comics magazine Raw in the 1980s. His graphic novel classic Black Hole, 2005 received the Harvey award. Other earlier cult classics by Burns include El Borbah, Big Baby, and Skin Deep, among others. Burns's drawings have appeared on the covers and in the pages of Rolling Stone, The New York Times, and many other publications, as well as on the album covers of Iggy Pop and others. His work was the subject of a solo exhibition Charles Burns at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Museum, and was included in the exhibition Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque at the SITE Santa Fe Biennial 2004 curated by Robert Storr. Burns's forthcoming graphic novel Sugar Skull (Pantheon, 2014) will complete the trilogy of books that include X'ed Out and The Hive-a dreamlike narrative and homage to Tintin and other art that Burns admires. A retrospective of Charles Burns work was exhibited at Museum M in Leuven, Belgium in 2011-2012. Charles Burns lives and works in Philadelphia.

Gallery hours are Tues. through Sat. 11:00 - 5:30 P.M through June, and Tues. - Fri. during July. A preview of the exhibition can be seen by clicking RIGHT HERE! When you get there, click on “Exhibition Schedule” on the top left-hand side of the page. Also, their website shows all the art work at the event and there is way too much to show here. In fact, we sort of limited what we are showing here as “Portraits of Book Authors”, but there are many Movie Actors and other celebrities, a HUGE variety!

Daniel Clowes

David Sedaris

Orhan Pamuk

Jennifer Egan

Gary Panter

Salman Rushdie

Zadie Smith

Steve Martin

Frank Herbert

In support of “Heroes & Villains: The Comic Book Art of Alex Ross” now on display at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, the museum has recently released this video with a tremendous interview and biography of Alex Ross at his own studio.

This Alex Ross Art Exhibition is on view at Norman Rockwell Museum from November 5th, 2012 through February 24th, 2013. Video produced by Jeremy Clowe for Norman Rockwell Museum. Exhibition organized by The Andy Warhol Museum, one of the four Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh.

At just three years of age, Ross was drawing TV commercials from memory. By the age of 13 he was scripting and drawing original comic books. Ten years later, Ross was hired by Marvel Comics to illustrate Marvel’s central characters in the comic book event, “Marvels” (1994). His impact on the comic book industry became so powerful that his hugely successful comic book series, “Kingdom Come” (1996), marks the close of the “Dark Age” of comic books, in which pessimism, violence, and gritty stories ruled, into the birth of the “Modern Age” of optimism and strong superheroes. Ross would go on to win the Comic Buyer’s Guide Award for Favorite Painter so many times the award was retired.