Charles Addams's New York

March 4 - June 8, 2010

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Cartoons from a quintessentially New York artist.

Charles Addams’s New York is an exhibition of original artworks by the legendary New Yorker cartoonist that capture Addams's quintessentially idiosyncratic and slyly subversive view of the city, depicting his signature macabre characters, twisted situations, and distorted reimaginings of the cityscape. The works in the exhibition include watercolors, preliminary pencil sketches, completed cartoons, and examples of published work from the cover of the New Yorker. The subjects are gleefully varied, ranging from charming to creepy; they include depictions of life on New York's subways and buses, in offices, department stores, museums, parks, streets, and homes. A special section will look at the evolution of the creepy assemblage of characters who were dubbed "the Addams Family" as they developed as mainstays of Addams's cartoons, moving through the streets of his New York and adding to the sense of mischief and deviancy that characterized the world as he saw it.

Published in Homebodies (Simon & Schuster, 1954). Mixed media on board. Collection of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation

Sponsors

The exhibition was made possible by the generous support of Melvin R. Seiden, the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation, and THE ADDAMS FAMILY—a new musical.

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