Drawings and original artwork | Cotsen Children’s Library

SIX WILD THINGS!!!

Maurice Sendak, “Before You Jump Online,” a study for print advertisement for Bell Atlantic’s campaign “Wild Things are Happening” (1998). Gift of Dennis M. V. David.

Maurice Sendak, “Stretching the Dollar,” study for American Express’s campaign, “Extended Warranty” 1988.. Gift of Dennis M. V. David.

FIVE BOOKS ON BAKING

FOUR LOVELY DRAWINGS

Border, headpiece, and two letters for an alphabet by Elise von Holtorp. Gift of Andrea Stillman.

A preparatory drawing by Richard (Dicky) Doyle. Gift of Andrea Stillman.

THREE COUNTING BOOKS

TWO BANNED BOOKS

AND A PICTURE BOOK ON HANUKKAH…

One of a group of picture books on Hanukkah from an anonymous donor in honor of Lloyd E. Cotsen and Margit Cotsen.

With heartfelt thanks to our generous donors who surprised us in December 2016!

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6. The Wild Things: Gift of Dennis M. V. David. Five preparatory drawings by Maurice Sendak for “Wild Things Are Happening,” the Bell Atlantic advertising campaign for Bell Atlantic Net, a state of the art Internet service launched in 1998.

5. The books on baking: five picture books about birthday cakes from an anonymous donor who bakes. Sue Aldridge, Children’s Party Cakes (London: New Holland, 1998); Debbie Brown, Enchanted Cakes for Children (London: Merehurst, c2000); Alexander McCall Smith, The Great Cake Mystery. Illustrated by Iain McIntosh (New York: Anchor, c2012); Helen Oxenbury, It’s My Birthday (Cambridge: Candlewick, 1994); Rosemary Wells, Bunny Cakes (New York: Scholastic, c1997).

4. The original artwork: four drawings presented to the Cotsen Children’s Library by Andrea Stillman. Hugh Deane, color drawing of a troll king and his two companions; Richard “Dicky” Doyle, sketch of a girl in crown riding a reindeer; Elise von Holtrop, border design, headpiece and the letters A and B for an unidentified alphabet book (possibly unpublished); D. Viel, pen and ink drawing of a crew of elves chopping down a flower.

3. The counting books: gift of an innumerate anonymous donor. Jennifer Adams. Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer. Illustrated by Alison Oliver. A Babylit Book. (Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2012); Barbara Barbieri McGrath. Skittles Riddles Math. Illustrated by Roger Glass. (Watertown, MA, Charlesbridge, 2000); Mark Shulman, I’ll Take a Dozen. A Bagel Book. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, c2002).

2. The banned books: gift of an anonymous donor from Boston. Arthur C. Gackley [i.e. Bob Staake]. Bad Little Children’s Books (New York: Abrams Image, 2016); Ranim Ganeshram. A Birthday Cake for George Washington. Illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton (New York: Scholastic, 2016).

1 The book on Hanukkah: eleven picture books about Hanukkah in honor of Lloyd E. and Margit Cotsen from an anonymous donor from Los Angeles. Seymour Chwast, The Miracle of Hanukkah. (Maplewood, NJ: Blue Apple Books, 2005); Woody Guthrie, Honeyky Hanukah. Pictures by Dave Horowitz. (New York: Doubleday, 2014); Eric A. Kimmel, Simon and the Bear: A Hanukkah Tale. Illustrated by Matthew Trueman. (Los Angeles: Disney, 2014); Stephen Krensky, Hanukkah at Valley Forge. Illustrated by Greg Harlin. (New York: Dutton, c2006); Leslea Newman, The Eight Nights of Chanukah. Illustrated by Elivia Savadier. (New York: Abrams, 2005); Leslea Newman, Runaway Dreidel! Illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker. (New York: Henry Holt, 2002); Amanda Peet & Andrea Troyer, Dear Santa, Love, Rachel Rosenstein. Illustrated by Christine Davenier. (New York: Doubleday, 2015); Ronne Randall, The Hanukkah Mice. Illustrated by Maggie Kneen. (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2008), Richard and Tanya Simon, Oskar and the Eight Blessings. Illustrated by Mark Siegel. (New York: Roaring Brook, 2015); Elka Weber, The Yankee at Seder. Illustrated by Adam Gustavson. (Berkeley: Tricycle Press, 2009); Jane Yolen, How Do Dinosaurs Say Happy Chanukah? Illustrated by Mark Teague. (New York: Blue Sky, 2013).

The Poetry-Drawing Book (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960) was supposed to provide children with a substitute for coloring books, which co-editors William Cole and Julia Colmore believed were “insulting to their imagination and intelligence” with “the banal and badly drawn” pictures. Their volume was designed with a blank page facing each poem, space for a boy or girl to draw whatever ideas the reading of the poem prompted. To facilitate self-expression with pencil, crayons, or watercolors, the book was spiral-bound so that it would lay flat on a table (or the floor). Cole and Colmore argued that this concept would encourage “a child’s innate sense of color and design, and to give free rein to his imagination. At the same time our book functions as an introduction to the magical world of poetry.”

Bill Cole was not an educator, but a journalist, publicity director, publisher, board member of the Poetry Society of America and Poets and Writers, and connoisseur of light verse and knock-knock jokes. The Poetry-Drawing Book was just one of many anthologies he produced for children over his long career.

Cotsen’s collection of manuscripts includes a very special copy of The Poetry-Drawing Book, whose purchase was underwritten several years ago by the Friends of the Princeton University Library. It belonged to Cole and his penciled initials are in the upper-left-hand corner just above the plates the clown is juggling. Cole and Colmore claimed that the book had been “tried out on hundreds of children” and perhaps a few of the “enriching, enlightening, and often hilarious” results were selected to go on the cover.Cole’s son Rossa grew up to be a professional photographer, but the Cotsen copy of The Poetry-Activity Book does not happen to be filled with the little boy’s drawings. Cole intended it to be a showcase for somewhat older aspiring artists.

There is a drawing by the thirty-one-year old Jules Feiffer, political satirist and illustrator of Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth.

To deliver a message of good cheer satirist Jules Feiffer, photographed in New York City, March 3, 1976, has chosen theater rather than cartoons. The result is "Knock Knock," his hit Broadway farce. (AP Photo/Jerry Mosey)

Jules Feiffer in 1976 (AP Photo/Jerry Mosey).

Feiffer was born in 1929. If he was thirty-one when he painted this rather ominous feline, then he must have done it in 1960. The Poetry-Drawing Book. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960. (Cotsen)

And another by twenty-eight-year old cartoonist Mark Alan Stamaty, author/illustrator of Who Needs Doughnuts (1973) and Alia’s Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq (2004).

If Stamaty was born in 1947 and he drew the rootin’ tootin’ shootin’ television when he was twenty-eight, then his page was completed in 1975.

Another surprise is this elaborate color drawing by a master of the macabre in black and white, Edward Gorey, then thirty six.

This enchanting vision of the snake in the garden would have been executed in 1961 by the thirty-six-year-old Gorey, who was born in 1929.

And that’s what happens when you give an artist a blank page…

There is an array of the famous Pere Castor activity books on the Cotsen virtual exhibitions page.

Cotsen Children’s Library

Princeton University

Category Archives: Drawings and original artwork

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, Some True Loves Gave to Cotsen…

A Celebrity Activity Book: Art by Gorey, Feiffer, and Stamaty in William Cole’s Poetry-Drawing Book!