A new exhibition at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art explores the overlooked beauty of endpapers—the decorative pages on the inside of a book’s covers that have become an expanded canvas in contemporary children’s publishing. Open + Shut: Celebrating the Art of Endpapers features original art from more than 50 books, from classics such as Blueberries for Sal and The World of Pooh, to three decades of contemporary books by Sophie Blackall, Yas Imamura, Eliza Kinkz, Grace Lin, Jessic Love, Jerry Pinkney and Paloma Valdivia.
Open + Shut explores how endpapers tell a story within a larger story, frame or comment on the main narrative, serve as a warm-up act, or provide extra information, almost like a visual introduction or epilogue.
“I think of endpapers as the picture book equivalent of a movie or TV show’s title and credits sequence, or a tempting appetizer at the start of a meal … plus a sweet dessert at the end,” explains guest curator Bruce Handy. “In the digital age, they give us yet another reason to cherish the pleasures of physical bookmaking—and reading.”
The endpapers of 18th- and 19th-century books were often purely decorative marbled papers until illustrators in the early 20th century began adding eye-catching drawings, paintings of central characters, or scene-setting landscapes. Examples paying homage to the decorative tradition include Virginia Lee Burton’s The Song of Robin Hood (1947), with a repeated wavy pattern of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest, and Ed Emberley’s ABC (1978), with vibrant hand-drawn swirls of green, purple and orange. Ashley Bryan’s endpapers for Beautiful Blackbird (2003) introduce colorful African birds and feature scissors that his mother used in her sewing and embroidery and that he, in turn, used in cutting the paper for the collages in the book. Another collage on view is Simms Taback’s Joseph had a Little Overcoat (1977), an illustration made from scraps of old photographs, patterned papers and other elements. “Taback’s resourcefulness reflects the story of Joseph, who fashions a jacket from his old overcoat, then a vest from the worn jacket, and so on, until all that remains is a handkerchief.”
Simms Taback, illustration for Joseph had a Little Overcoat (Viking). Gift of Simms Taback & Family. ©1977 Simms Taback.
Jerry Pinkney, illustration for The Lion & the Mouse (Little, Brown Books). Gift of Gloria Pinkney. ©2009 Jerry Pinkney.
Brendan Wenzel, illustration for Inside Cat (Chronicle Books). Collection of Brendan Wenzel. ©2021 Brendan Wenzel.
Paloma Valdivia, illustration for Book of Questions: Selections / Libro de las Preguntas: Selecciones by Pablo Neruda (Enchanted Lion). Collection of the artist. ©2022 Paloma Valdivia.
Sophie Blackall, illustration for If You Come to Earth (Chronicle Books). Collection of the artist. ©2020 Sophie Blackall.
Yas Imamura, illustration for Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall. Collection of the artist. ©2021 Yas Imamura. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.
Ashley Bryan, illustration for Beautiful Blackbird (Atheneum). Collection of the Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania. ©2023 Ashley Bryan
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