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Love Animation Pictures Biography
Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925–April 15, 2000) was a writer and artist noted for his wry, macabre illustrated books.
Biography
Born in Chicago, Gorey came from a colorful family; his parents divorced when he was 11, then remarried when he was 27. One of his step-mothers was Corinna Mura, a cabaret singer who had a brief role in the classic film Casablanca. His father was briefly a journalist, and his maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. John Garvey, was a popular 19th century greeting card writer/artist. (Gorey claimed to have inherited his talents from her.) He attended a variety of local grade schools and then the Francis W. Parker School. He spent 1944–1946 in the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and then attended Harvard University from 1946 to 1950, where he studied French and roomed with future poet Frank O'Hara.
Although he would frequently state that his formal art training was "negligible," Gorey studied art for one semester at the Chicago Art Institute in 1943, eventually becoming a professional illustrator. From 1953 to 1960 he lived in New York City and worked for the Art Department of Doubleday Anchor, illustrating book covers and in some cases adding illustrations to the text. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. In later years he illustrated many children's books by John Bellairs, as well as books in several series begun by Bellairs and continued by other authors after his death.
His first independent work, The Unstrung Harp, was published in 1953. He also published under pen names that were anagrams of his first and last names, such as "Ogdred Weary."
Gorey's illustrated (and sometimes wordless) books, with their vaguely ominous air and ostensibly Victorian and Edwardian settings, have long had a cult following. However, Gorey became particularly well-known through his animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! in 1980, and his designs for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design and was also nominated for Best Scenic Design.
The settings and style of Gorey's work have caused many people to assume he was British; in fact, he never visited England, and almost never traveled. In later years, he lived year-round in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, where he wrote and directed numerous evening-length entertainments, often featuring his own papier-mâché puppets, in an ensemble known as La Theatricule Stoique. His major theatrical work was the libretto for an "Opera Seria for Handpuppets," The White Canoe, to a score by the composer Daniel James Wolf. Based on the Lady of the Lake legend, the opera premiered posthumously. On August 13, 1987, his play "Lost Shoelaces" premiered in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In the early '70s, Gorey wrote an unproduced screenplay for a silent film, The Black Doll.
Gorey was noted for his fondness for ballet (for many years, he religiously attended all performances of the New York City Ballet) and cats, of which he had many. Both figure prominently in his work. His knowledge of literature and films was unusually extensive, and in his interviews, he named as some of his favorite artists Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Francis Bacon, George Balanchine, Balthus, Louis Feuillade, Ronald Firbank, Lady Murasaki Shikibu, Robert Musil, Yasujiro Ozu, Anthony Trollope, and Johannes Vermeer. Gorey was also an unashamed pop culture junkie, avidly following soap operas and TV comedies like Petticoat Junction and Cheers, and he had particular affection for dark genre series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman: The Animated Series and The X-Files; he once told an interviewer that he so enjoyed the Batman series that it was influencing the visual style of one of his upcoming books. Gorey treated TV commercials as an artform in themselves, even taping his favorites for later study. But Gorey was especially fond of movies, and for a time did regular and very waspish reviews for the Soho Weekly under the name Wardore Edgy.
Although Gorey's books were popular with children, he did not associate with children much and had no particular fondness for them. Gorey never married, professed to have little interest in romance, and never discussed any specific romantic relationships in interviews. In the book "The Strange Case of Edward Gorey," published after Gorey's death, his friend Alexander Theroux reported that when Gorey was pressed on the matter of his sexual orientation, he said that even he wasn't sure if he was gay or straight. Theroux paints a portrait of a man who lived a fairly solitary existence by choice, friendly, generous and apparently comfortable with strangers, but strongly preferring to be alone most of the time.
From 1996 to his death in April 2000, the normally reclusive artist was the subject of a direct cinema-style documentary directed by Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films. This has yet to be released. His Cape Cod house is called Elephant House and is the subject of a photography book entitled Elephant House: Or, the Home of Edward Gorey, with photographs and text by Kevin McDermott. The house now serves as a gallery and museum of sorts.
Gorey's work defies easy classification. He is typically desribed as an illustrator, but this merely scratches the surface. His combination of words and pictures has led some to classify him as a cartoonist, while others regard him primarily as a writer who drew, or an artist who wrote. His books can be found in the humor and cartoon sections of major bookstores, but books like The Object Lesson have earned serious critical respect as works of surrealist art. His endless formal experimentations - creating books that were wordless, books that were literally matchbox-sized, pop-up books, books entirely populated by inanimate objects, etc. - complicates matters still further, and then there's the thorny issue of whether his books are best classed as literature for children or adults. As Gorey told interviewer Richard Dyer, "Ideally, if anything were any good, it would be indescribable
Ants
They might be famous for their brawn -- ants can carry up to 20 times their body weight, the equivalent of a woman strapping a hippo to her back -- but ants are not renowned for brains. When it comes to delegation, however, they're smart. Males cannot claim much credit for this -- they spend their days wandering around accepting food until they mate, when they promptly die -- but worker ants, who are generally sterile females, are clever. They perform tasks such as foraging, defending, preparing food, construction and attending to the queen. The most dangerous task is foraging, so older, more expendable ants are given the job, while the younger ones wait on the queen.
New Caledonian Crows
The ability to fashion tools has always been held as uniquely primate, distinguishing us from (apparently) less intelligent creatures. But humans and apes are not alone in having tool-making skills. Crows amazed the science community in October when footage -- recorded using tiny "crow-cams" on the tails of New Caledonian crows -- showed the birds creating advanced implements. One crow was observed whittling twigs and leaves with its beak to fashion grabbers designed to retrieve grubs from the ground. The New Caledonian crows are the only known non-primate to create and use new tools.
Orang-utan
Chimps might be able to outwit Japanese university students in a test of photographic memory, and are traditionally considered to be second only to humans in the intelligence stakes, but research published earlier this year suggested that orang-utans were the smartest swingers in the ape world. Scientists from Harvard University studied orang-utans in Borneo and found them capable of tasks that chimps could only dream of, such as using leaves to make waterproof hats and roofs. They also gathered evidence that the orange-haired apes have developed a culture in which adults teach the young how to make tools. Viewers of David Attenborough's documentaries will remember the astonishing film of an orang-utan climbing into a canoe and using a paddle.
Love Animation Pictures Biography
Edward St. John Gorey (February 22, 1925–April 15, 2000) was a writer and artist noted for his wry, macabre illustrated books.
Biography
Born in Chicago, Gorey came from a colorful family; his parents divorced when he was 11, then remarried when he was 27. One of his step-mothers was Corinna Mura, a cabaret singer who had a brief role in the classic film Casablanca. His father was briefly a journalist, and his maternal great-grandmother, Helen St. John Garvey, was a popular 19th century greeting card writer/artist. (Gorey claimed to have inherited his talents from her.) He attended a variety of local grade schools and then the Francis W. Parker School. He spent 1944–1946 in the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, and then attended Harvard University from 1946 to 1950, where he studied French and roomed with future poet Frank O'Hara.
Although he would frequently state that his formal art training was "negligible," Gorey studied art for one semester at the Chicago Art Institute in 1943, eventually becoming a professional illustrator. From 1953 to 1960 he lived in New York City and worked for the Art Department of Doubleday Anchor, illustrating book covers and in some cases adding illustrations to the text. He has illustrated works as diverse as Dracula by Bram Stoker, The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, and Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot. In later years he illustrated many children's books by John Bellairs, as well as books in several series begun by Bellairs and continued by other authors after his death.
His first independent work, The Unstrung Harp, was published in 1953. He also published under pen names that were anagrams of his first and last names, such as "Ogdred Weary."
Gorey's illustrated (and sometimes wordless) books, with their vaguely ominous air and ostensibly Victorian and Edwardian settings, have long had a cult following. However, Gorey became particularly well-known through his animated introduction to the PBS series Mystery! in 1980, and his designs for the 1977 Broadway production of Dracula, for which he won a Tony Award for Best Costume Design and was also nominated for Best Scenic Design.
The settings and style of Gorey's work have caused many people to assume he was British; in fact, he never visited England, and almost never traveled. In later years, he lived year-round in Yarmouth Port, Massachusetts on Cape Cod, where he wrote and directed numerous evening-length entertainments, often featuring his own papier-mâché puppets, in an ensemble known as La Theatricule Stoique. His major theatrical work was the libretto for an "Opera Seria for Handpuppets," The White Canoe, to a score by the composer Daniel James Wolf. Based on the Lady of the Lake legend, the opera premiered posthumously. On August 13, 1987, his play "Lost Shoelaces" premiered in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. In the early '70s, Gorey wrote an unproduced screenplay for a silent film, The Black Doll.
Gorey was noted for his fondness for ballet (for many years, he religiously attended all performances of the New York City Ballet) and cats, of which he had many. Both figure prominently in his work. His knowledge of literature and films was unusually extensive, and in his interviews, he named as some of his favorite artists Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Francis Bacon, George Balanchine, Balthus, Louis Feuillade, Ronald Firbank, Lady Murasaki Shikibu, Robert Musil, Yasujiro Ozu, Anthony Trollope, and Johannes Vermeer. Gorey was also an unashamed pop culture junkie, avidly following soap operas and TV comedies like Petticoat Junction and Cheers, and he had particular affection for dark genre series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Batman: The Animated Series and The X-Files; he once told an interviewer that he so enjoyed the Batman series that it was influencing the visual style of one of his upcoming books. Gorey treated TV commercials as an artform in themselves, even taping his favorites for later study. But Gorey was especially fond of movies, and for a time did regular and very waspish reviews for the Soho Weekly under the name Wardore Edgy.
Although Gorey's books were popular with children, he did not associate with children much and had no particular fondness for them. Gorey never married, professed to have little interest in romance, and never discussed any specific romantic relationships in interviews. In the book "The Strange Case of Edward Gorey," published after Gorey's death, his friend Alexander Theroux reported that when Gorey was pressed on the matter of his sexual orientation, he said that even he wasn't sure if he was gay or straight. Theroux paints a portrait of a man who lived a fairly solitary existence by choice, friendly, generous and apparently comfortable with strangers, but strongly preferring to be alone most of the time.
From 1996 to his death in April 2000, the normally reclusive artist was the subject of a direct cinema-style documentary directed by Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films. This has yet to be released. His Cape Cod house is called Elephant House and is the subject of a photography book entitled Elephant House: Or, the Home of Edward Gorey, with photographs and text by Kevin McDermott. The house now serves as a gallery and museum of sorts.
Gorey's work defies easy classification. He is typically desribed as an illustrator, but this merely scratches the surface. His combination of words and pictures has led some to classify him as a cartoonist, while others regard him primarily as a writer who drew, or an artist who wrote. His books can be found in the humor and cartoon sections of major bookstores, but books like The Object Lesson have earned serious critical respect as works of surrealist art. His endless formal experimentations - creating books that were wordless, books that were literally matchbox-sized, pop-up books, books entirely populated by inanimate objects, etc. - complicates matters still further, and then there's the thorny issue of whether his books are best classed as literature for children or adults. As Gorey told interviewer Richard Dyer, "Ideally, if anything were any good, it would be indescribable
Ants
They might be famous for their brawn -- ants can carry up to 20 times their body weight, the equivalent of a woman strapping a hippo to her back -- but ants are not renowned for brains. When it comes to delegation, however, they're smart. Males cannot claim much credit for this -- they spend their days wandering around accepting food until they mate, when they promptly die -- but worker ants, who are generally sterile females, are clever. They perform tasks such as foraging, defending, preparing food, construction and attending to the queen. The most dangerous task is foraging, so older, more expendable ants are given the job, while the younger ones wait on the queen.
New Caledonian Crows
The ability to fashion tools has always been held as uniquely primate, distinguishing us from (apparently) less intelligent creatures. But humans and apes are not alone in having tool-making skills. Crows amazed the science community in October when footage -- recorded using tiny "crow-cams" on the tails of New Caledonian crows -- showed the birds creating advanced implements. One crow was observed whittling twigs and leaves with its beak to fashion grabbers designed to retrieve grubs from the ground. The New Caledonian crows are the only known non-primate to create and use new tools.
Orang-utan
Chimps might be able to outwit Japanese university students in a test of photographic memory, and are traditionally considered to be second only to humans in the intelligence stakes, but research published earlier this year suggested that orang-utans were the smartest swingers in the ape world. Scientists from Harvard University studied orang-utans in Borneo and found them capable of tasks that chimps could only dream of, such as using leaves to make waterproof hats and roofs. They also gathered evidence that the orange-haired apes have developed a culture in which adults teach the young how to make tools. Viewers of David Attenborough's documentaries will remember the astonishing film of an orang-utan climbing into a canoe and using a paddle.
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
Love Animation Pictures
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