Saint Louis Magazine, By: Christine Jackson
Plenty of people spend their summers working their way through reading lists, catching up on those stories and novels that seem to take too much time the rest of the year. But artist Mary Engelbreit took her summer reading to another level.
Engelbreit, free from any deadlines for a while, spent this past summer revisiting formative stories, poems, novels, and nursery rhymes from her childhood, creating an illustration for each one.
“I had always thought about illustrating the books I liked as a child and that were inspirational to me,” says Engelbreit. “I decided I would do one illustration for each book, and that would be a fun way to spend the summer.”
The result: Engelbreit’s newest exhibition, Picture. Book. On view through December 31 at Green Door Art Gallery, the collection includes 24 new illustrations for such stories and poems as The Velveteen Rabbit, Jane Eyre, The Wizard of Oz, “The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat,” and “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat,” as well as the original illustrations for Engelbreit’s newest book, The Littlest Night Before Christmas, which was published earlier this year.
