Sunday, February 01, 2009

Once Upon a Time




Two exhibitions I enjoyed last week and today are the fairy tales and fantasies for children one in the library and the gardens in art exhibition, Enchanted Gardens, at the art gallery.




The fairy tales one spans the 19th-20th century mainly and it is very interesting to see the different ways different artists have illustrated the same book eg Peter Pan by Mabel Lucie Atwell and Arthur Rackham. The contemporary illustrators bring a new dimension to old favourites. A lot of these books are familiar to me from my own childhood - eg the Fairy books by Andrew Lang and the modern fantasies and animal fantasies from E's era.




The Enchanted Gardens exhibition was a treat - beautiful flower photographs by Ernst Haas, flower paintings by NZer Karl Maugham, garden sculpture, engravings, even a knitted tea cosy by Heather Nicholson, (knitting guru), shaped like a house with embroidered flowers climbing up the front of it.

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