OXFORD,
Miss. – Artwork by renowned painter, writer and naturalist Walter
Inglis Anderson is on exhibit at the University of Mississippi’s J.D.
Williams Library through January.
The 60-piece display, “Walter
Anderson and World Literature,” is hosted by the Department of Archives
and Special Collections on the library’s third floor.
It
features line drawings, watercolors and panels inspired by great works
of literature such as “Don Quixote,” “The Iliad,” “Alice in
Wonderland,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Magic Carpet.” Block
prints from Anderson’s book “An Alphabet” – created for his own
children – stretch around the exhibit wall.
A voracious reader,
Anderson completed nearly 10,000 pen-and-ink drawings to illustrate
page after page of the books as he would read them.
“It’s
exciting for the library to showcase this wonderful exhibit of work by
Walter Anderson,” said Jennifer Ford, head of Archives and Special
Collections. “His genius can be clearly seen, as well as his love for
literature. We hope that our patrons will be able to get a glimpse into
his world.”
While Anderson’s world stretched from his home on the Mississippi Gulf Coast to faraway places such as China and South America, he found solace in being alone, often immersed in his imaginary world of books.
“Daddy was essentially on a quest – he was pursuing the Holy Grail,” said his son John Anderson, curator of the library exhibit.
“There are many artists who explored a story but few who fused with it,” said Patricia Pinson, former curator of exhibitions at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art in Ocean Springs. “The book to Anderson was a way of life, part of the quest to find realization and meaning. It was the distillation of the timeless epics that gave him the grasp of the significance of the moment.”
Sponsored in conjunction with the 16th annual Oxford Conference for the Book, the exhibit was the focus of the conference’s opening session March 26. Following the exhibit’s close at the library, plans call for it to travel to other libraries, cultural centers and schools for years to come.
“This exhibit might be little explosions if allowed to be shown in schools where children can look at the work and say, ‘Wait a minute, I see something another way,'” John Anderson said.
The public is welcome to view the exhibit during regular library hours: 1 p.m.-2 a.m. Sunday, 7 a.m.-2 a.m. Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday. A Subject Guide for the exhibit is available at http://apollo.lib.olemiss.edu/center/subject?guide/anderson/intro. For assistance related to a disability, call 662-915-7408.
For more information about the Williams Library, visit http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/general?library/ .