Picturing |
 |
hildhood |
Picturing |
|
hildhood |
THE SUBJECT OF Picturing Childhood brings together the
intellectual and collecting interests of UCLA's world-renowned research
library and its distinguished collection of works of art on paper, the Grunwald
Center for the Graphic Arts. This exhibition and catalogue celebrate not
only the remarkable collection of children's materials in the library's
Department of Special Collections but also the foresight of such UCLA librarians
as Wilbur Jordan Smith, F. Brooke Whiting, and James Davis, who began building
this collection long before the subject of childhood became a central issue
for both the academy and society. Picturing Childhood also attests
to the Grunwald Center's steadfast interest in the intricate interrelationships
among words and images and art and technology.
Two matters become increasingly clear as we reflect on the wondrous variety of objects in the exhibition. The first is that childhood, as we now think of that period between infancy and adulthood, is an invention of the eighteenth century in those very few countries of Western Europe that could afford leisure and were dedicated to creating and confirming a middle-class elite. The intensity of focus on this new "species" reached its apogee in the explosion of splendid illustrated books in late Victorian England. The second issue raised concerns the profound paradox of purpose that characterizes the meaning of children's books, toys, and games. Children's literature has its roots deeply planted in conservative moral teaching, and its goal is socialization and, often, conformity to prevailing ideology. Yet one has only to look at many of the exquisite books shown here—from John Amos Comenius's Orbis Sensualium Pictus of 1658 to those of Beatrix Potter, Arthur Rackham, and Dr. Seuss in the present century—to know that the other great function of children's books involves the stimulation and liberation of the imagination. Surely, more than any other form of literature and art, illustrated children's books can be said to respond to the fundamental duality of purpose ascribed to the arts of the Western world: to teach and to delight—docere et delectare. We trust that readers of this catalogue and viewers of the exhibition may share in both the learning and pleasure that so characterize the subject.
We want to thank the three curators of the exhibition, Cynthia Burlingham and Karen Mayers of the Grunwald Center and Patricia Waldron, for their imaginative response to a burgeoning field of study and an immense archive of materials. We also thank Director Peter Reill and Librarian Bruce Whiteman of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, UCLA, and University Librarian Gerald Lowell and Head of the Department of Special Collections Lynda Claassen of the Geisel Library of the University of California, San Diego. Major support for the exhibition was provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; Northern Trust Bank of California; Classical 105.1 KKGO-FM; and the Good Works Foundation. Additional support was provided by the Frances and Sidney Brody Charitable Fund; Peter and Elizabeth Goulds and L.A. Louver Gallery, Venice, California; Mary and Bob Looker; and Susan Payne.
We wish to acknowledge with gratitude the support of Lloyd Cotsen, himself a wise collector of this material and longtime supporter of children's education, who made possible the publication of this catalogue, as well as Dr. and Mrs. Albert Nichols, whose generosity made it possible for us to document the exhibition in an archival video produced by UCLA's Office of Instructional Development. Finally, we want to thank all those children, whether in their first or later childhoods, who responded to the exhibition with the joy that we believe is inherent in the subject of Picturing Childhood.
© 1997 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.