Colby-Sawyer College will celebrate the career, creativity, and generosity of former faculty member Tomie dePaola, one of the world’s most prolific and popular children’s authors and illustrators, in the second of two exhibitions at the Sawyer Fine and Performing Arts Center, Tomie dePaola: NOW.
dePaola is perhaps best known for creating the eponymous pasta maker in Strega Nona, a picture book that garnered a Caldecott Honor Award in 1976, but he has published nearly 250 books and sold some 15 million copies. NOW will include many of his familiar children’s book illustrations, which have earned him awards including the 2011 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for making a “significant and lasting contribution to children’s literature.”
The NOW exhibition this fall will coincide with the New London resident’s 80th birthday and highlight his career from 1975 to the present with fine art and book illustrations. NOW will also feature many of dePaola’s paintings, which he shows at galleries. He draws inspiration from Mexican folk art, Catholic iconography, and the artists he studied in the 1950s at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. THEN, held last fall, featured dePaola’s early drawings, paintings, and books, along with images of his costume and set designs, from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s.
Tomie dePaola: NOW will open on September 19 with a reception sponsored by Ledyard Bank from 5 to 7 PM in the Marian Graves Mugar Art Gallery in the Sawyer Fine and Performing Arts Center. Admission is free, and all are welcome.
The exhibition will run through October 26. The gallery hours through October 26 are Monday through Friday, 9 AM to 7 PM; Saturday, 10 AM to 4 PM; and Sunday, 1 to 4 PM.
A second free event open to the public, In the Gallery with Tomie, will take place on Saturday, September 20, in the Marian Graves Mugar Art Gallery in the Sawyer Fine and Performing Arts Center from 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM. dePaola’s younger fans, their families, and friends are invited to a gallery talk, Q&A session, and book signing. Books will be available for purchase on-site from Morgan Hill Bookstore.
It will be a busy fall at Colby-Sawyer for dePaola – in addition to opening NOW, he will design the set for the Fine and Performing Arts Department’s fall production of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. The play will run from November 6 through 8 at the Sawyer Center. Visit Colby-Sawyer.edu/events for more details.