Cats, Dogs, Men, Women, Ninnies & Clowns: 01/05/16

Cats, Dogs, Men, Women, Ninnies & Clowns by Jeanne Steig is a retrospective of William Steig's artwork. William Steig began his career as a New Yorker cartoonist but is now probably best known for his Children's books (like Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. His most famous book, now, is Shrek because of the films.

The title pretty much gives away his favorite themes: cats, dogs, men, women, ninnies, and clowns. His drawings consist of pen lines done in apparent long scribbles, where everything is connected. It's like watching a tangle of lines unfold themselves into something recognizable.

William Steig was constantly drawing and he had favorite themes. Jeanne, his widow, organized his works of art by theme. While perhaps useful to see how a specific type of drawing evolved over time, long chapters did become rather repetitive. I think it would have been more interesting to see the artwork evolve over time, rather than groups of the same thing.

Four Stars

Comments (0)