David Macaulay at the Dixon

The Dixon Gallery and Gardens has an exhibit on David Macaulay called "Building Books: The Art of David Macaulay" that met our every expectation. This is exactly the kind of thing we were hoping for at the Babar exhibit but did not get. That was such a disappointment. "Building Books" does not disappoint! The Dixon site describes the show in part by explaining the breadth of materials included:

The exhibition presents a diverse range of exhibition materials, including over 100 original works of art, studies, sketchbooks, book models, manuscripts and correspondence, artifacts (including hand-built ship models), stuffed specimens, reference materials, travel mementos, and a video documentary about the artist, produced for this exhibition.

More space in devoted to his book Ship (one of our least favorite of his works) than any other single book, but there are samples from Cathedral, Pyramid and Castle, all of which we used with the kids for years and which The Younger Son has kept on his own shelves for some time now. David Macaulay's architectural works are included in many book lists and curricula for homeschoolers, including Laura Berquist's Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum and Susan Wise Bauer's The Well-Trained Mind, which is how we first became aware of them.

There is a video on display which we watched only a short segment of but which includes Mr. Macaulay discussing his work, and there is a display of photos of Macaulay from his early childhood to recent years.

This is the opening minute from what I assume is the same video:



There is a 1-hour video built around the book Cathedral here and a similar video based on City here.

We were unaware of his books that are specifically intended to be children's books, so we learned more about his work today. I appreciated the biographical information. He is scheduled to be at the Dixon for a book-signing, but we will be unable to attend.

The Wikipedia entry on this artist has a link to this exhibit.