Dr. Seuss Art

C H A S E A R T C O M P A N I E S | C H I C A G O , I LAr tist Management & Publishing | 3176 MacAr thur Blvd. | Nor thbrook, IL 60062

Images Compiled and Edited by

William W. Dreyer and Robert Chase Jr.

Written by

Caroline M. Smith

Secrets of the DeepT H E LO ST, F O RGOT T EN , A ND H I D D EN WORKS O F

T H EODOR S EUSS G E I S E L

Dr. Seusss

I have said that Ted knew he would leave big footprints after he was gone, but he couldnt possibly have known the astounding impact his legacy would have on the worlds of art, literature, pop, and high culture.

It is poetic that one of Teds most treasured possessions is a fossil given to him by his father in 1933. Its a heavy stone slab embedded with a dinosaur footprint eleven inches wide and sixteen inches long. Provenance placed its discovery near Holyoke, Massachusetts, and Yale anthropologists believe it to be 150 million years old; Ted called it the oldest antique in the world. He loved that piece and always kept it close, moving it with him wherever he lived. Today it is prominently displayed at the entryway of our home, Seuss House.

For me this big footprint is symbolic of a life that made a permanent mark; a life held in universal high esteem; a life whose joyful rhymes and far-off fantasies speak still to an ever-growing world of readers.

This in-depth look at Teds artistic life ventures through chapters of his career that many never knew existed, from his days as an advertising illustrator to his work on the war effort, his political cartoons, and of course the images that connected so many children and parents in an enlightened approach to reading. Here you will also find key examples of his most treasured private works, some of which are familiar and others that are just now seeing the light of day. Through it all, it is Teds undeniable, consistent, and unique artistic footprint that carried him through so many personal and professional adventures.

It is with great pleasure that I share Ted, his art, his imagination, and his boundless creativity with you through the pages of this book. I am gratified to carry out Teds wishes and have these works revealed to the world.

I dedicate Secrets of the Deep to Teds artistic footprint in time, now set forever in stone.

Audrey Geisel S E P T EMBER 10 , 2 010 L A JO L L A , C A L I F O RN I A

Ted Geisel expressed to his wife, Audrey, that he wished to wait

until he was gone before introducing his private artworks to the

public. Secretly, Ted wanted to be recognized as a serious artist,

but openly, he was quick to describe his private works as

midnight paintings. Fortunately for Seuss fans and scholars,

that is exactly what was left behind when he died in 1991. More

than sixty of Ted Geisels midnight paintings were revealed for

the first time in his 1995 book The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss.

These are the windows to the world of an unassuming genius.

Artistically, they embody a magical combination of the person

and persona of Ted Geisel and Dr. Seuss and, in many ways, are

what one imagines the Good Doctor would create late at night in

his hilltop studio. At other times, the imagery and titles stretch

well beyond all preconceived notions. In either case, Seuss

delivers a feast of visual stunners, dense with ideas.

While researching Teds paintings and sculpture at his La Jolla

home, I became aware that Ted and Audrey kept more than

forty artworks behind a concealed false door that were publicly

unknown and unpublished, all waiting for Audrey to reveal them

to Teds fans. This discovery sparked a passion to uncover and

catalog other lost, forgotten, and hidden works from Teds past.

Secrets of the Deep presents these new findings, along with

lesser-known favorites, through an expanded and reorganized

look at the artistic legacy of Theodor Seuss Geisel. Along with

the unpublished paintings from the Estate of Dr. Seuss, several

works from private collections are also published here for the

first time, including Xmas Chaos, The two in the bush that the

bird in the hand is worth more than, and Charles Hendersons

Conscience Chasing His Soul. In no way do we attempt to

present a catalogue raisonn, a daunting endeavor considering

Teds almost seventy-year career. Rather we seek to introduce a

compelling medley of artworks from nearly every aspect of Ted

Geisels multifaceted career, with a spotlight on works that are

significant in and of themselves, or artistically lead to, or

connect back to, important milestones.

For those unfamiliar with the 1995 book The Secret Art of Dr.

Seuss, we include those artworks, now reunited with the latest

Geisel archive discoveries, and present them thematically

throughout the first and third chapters. Missing from this book

is Seusss best-known calling cardthe work from his illustrated

childrens books. Despite their absence, you will recognize the

familiar Zeitgeist of his beloved characters, secreted away

beneath a thin veil. We do, however, give special attention to

three lesser-known books, The Seven Lady Godivas (1939),

McElligots Pool (1947), and Happy Birthday To You! (1959).

Unlike the majority of Seusss literary works, these books

present fully developed paintings on each page in place of

traditional pen-and-ink illustrations. Aside from these three

childrens books, and in keeping with this books subtitleThe

Lost, Forgotten, and Hidden Works of Theodor Seuss Geisel

we focus largely on unknown works, aiming to identify the visual

ingredients that later inform nearly all of Teds childrens books.

If Seusss mischievously good-humored books and editorials hint

at a puckish imagination, his midnight paintings confirm it. Using

an uncanny visual wit and premonition, Seusss hipness somehow

rivals the coolest postmodern art on the scene today. As children,

we grew up on Seusss playful verse and zealous imagination.

As adults, we realize that Theodor Seuss Geisel is not just an

important and innovative 20th-century painter but one of the few

artists working in any medium who knows how to make people

happy while at the same time inspiring them to think.

To this day, artworks in the Geisel archives are rarely, if ever,

shown outside the Estate of Dr. Seuss. It is only with the support

and vision of Audrey Geisel that a collection of authorized

Estate Editions are accessible for museum exhibition and

private collection. Twenty years after Teds death, these works

complete her promise to share his art. In her introduction to

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss, Audrey writes, I remember telling

Ted that there would come a day when many of his paintings

would be seen and he would thus share with his fans another

facet of himselfhis private self. That day has come. I am glad.

We share Audreys enthusiasm and, through this forum, present the

breadth of Ted Geisels artistic endeavors, so that he may be

evaluated not only as an author but also as an artist in his own right.

P R E FAC E

William W. Dreyer CURATOR , T H E A RT O F D R . S EUSS

47

S E C R ET A R T A ND T H E G E I S E L A RCH I V E S

The Deco Period

The international design style art deco originated near the outset of World War I and remained

popular through the end of World War II (circa 1915-1945). As this time frame fluctuated

dramatically between years of want and plenty, art deco was an elegant, contemporary

interpretation of the standards and expectations, fascinations and frivolities of each culture

in which it developed. The paintings that Ted Geisel created during this period reflected that

roller coaster of dreams and desires.

Many of Teds paintings of the 1930s and 40s used an artistic element derived from his most

successful work as a commercial illustrator. Referred to here as Geisels Deco Period, these

years refer to his instinctive use of saturated black backgrounds combined with art deco

elements often found within the architecture of his artworks. Ultimately, he created a new

visual language that accentuated the muted pallets so characteristic of this period. From

signature smoke rings billowing from Seussian mountaintops to architectural labyrinths

decorating otherworldly landscapes, elements such as these reflected Ted Geisels creative

interpretation of the art deco movement.

50

Elephant Presenting Flower to a BirdINK AND WATERCOLOR ON ILLUSTRATION BOARD

57


La Jolla Birdwomen

Ted and Helen Geisel fell in love with La Jolla on their first visit in 1928. Twenty years later,

they began looking for a permanent California homea place where the climate would allow

Ted to walk around outside in my pajamas. In a one-day search, the couple purchased

La Jollas Tower, a rundown observation structure atop Mount Soledad, which had become a

lovers-lane destination, its walls carved with the initials of hundreds of couples. They built

their permanent home around the Tower, making it Teds studio.

By 1953, Ted was completely enthralled with La Jolla and wanted to give up movies and

advertising and anything else that means dueling with vice presidents. He lamented to

his agent, Phyllis Jackson, that he simply wanted to stay in Southern California and write

childrens books. She responded that the current baby boom, and the burgeoning market for

childrens literature, made that financially possible. Encouraged, Ted made a new commitment

to books. With that settled, he also chose to become more visible in the community. He became

a trustee of the San Diego Fine Arts Museum and of the La Jolla Town

Council. The Geisels were coveted dinner guests, and Teds first wife,

Helen, became known for her elegant entertaining, which included an

annual Christmas Eve dinner with a guest list that grew over the years to

sixty-five. Helen joined the board of directors of the La Jolla Museum of

Art, and through her best friend, Marian Longstreth, took great interest

in the La Jolla Playhouse, which was led by the actors Gregory Peck,

Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer.

Becoming enmeshed in the social comings and goings of La Jolla gave Ted a lush playground

for concocting not only elaborate gags on his stylish neighbors but also for teasing them

artistically. As one of the few men in town who worked from home, Ted lightheartedly

considered himself a bird watcher on the social scene, always looking to create gentle spoofs

of his chic female friends taken up in their whirl of luncheons, parties, and charity balls.

The result was Teds series La Jolla Birdwomen, a spicy collection of eleven known paintings

with lyrical titles, works that could have sprung only from the mind of a genial witness

for example, My Petunia Can Lick Your Geranium; Not Speaking; Martini Bird; Gosh!

Do I Look as Old as All That!; View from a Window of a Rented Beach Cottage; and

Oh, Id Love to Go to the Party, but Im Absolutely Dead.

In August 1963, Ted Geisel donated a painting from the Birdwomen series to a charity

auction benefiting the La Jolla Art Center. This socially minded artwork, entitled Mrs. Norilee

Schneelock Poured, Miss Nesselroda Sugared, or Raising Money for the Arts in La Jolla,

portrayed two grand dames of good intentions elegantly nestled in deco environs, happily

doing the important work of promoting the arts. It delighted the audience that night and won

the top auction bid, more than was paid for a Czanne drawing. It was the only time that Ted

offered one of his midnight paintings for sale.

AS ON E O F T H E F EW MEN I N TOWN

WHO WOR K ED F ROM HOME , T E D

L I G HT H E A RT E D LY CON S I D E R ED H IM S E L F

A B I R D WAT CH E R ON T H E S O C I A L S C E N E ,

A LWAYS L OO K I N G TO C R E AT E G E N T L E

S P OO F S O F H I S C H I C F EMA L E F R I E ND S .

Raising Money for the ArtsOIL ON CANVAS

71


The Cat Behind the Hat

The August 13, 2007, issue of U.S. News & World Report declared 1957 to be A Year That

Changed America. The article focused on ten disparate events. Among them were the Cold War

Soviet launch of Sputnik, setting off the race for space; the Dodgers and Giants both deserting

New York for California, bringing big-time baseball and world attention to the West Coast;

growing racial tensions hitting their peak in Little Rock; the introduction of the birth control

pill; and a former ad man, Dr. Seuss, revolutionizing the way that children learned to read.

U.S. News began the Seuss segment, The Birth of a Famous Feline, with this accolade,

Greece had ZeusAmerica has Seuss, and continued in part, In the 50 years since The Cat

in the Hat exploded onto the childrens book scene, Theodor Seuss Geisel has become a

central character in the American literary mythology, sharing the pantheon with the likes of

Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Of his many imaginative stories, The Cat in the Hat

remains the most iconic.

Ted Geisel had been writing childrens books for twenty years when

The Cat in the Hat first stepped into our lives and onto the world stage in

1957, literally supercharging his career. Geisels quirky Cat put him on the

fast track to becoming a force in childrens literacy due in part to the

books origins in an emerging philosophy of phonetic learning. Not only

was the vocabulary largely taken from a list of 220 beginners words but

Ted crafted the story in anapestic tetrameter, marking out a cadence that

was easy for young readers to grasp. Using this model, Ted, Helen, his wife

of forty years, and Phyllis Cerf, the wife of the Random House president

Bennett Cerf, would go on to found Beginner Books at Random House.

Over time the Cat in the Hat became more than a recurring character for Ted; it also morphed

into his alter ego, surfacing repeatedly in his surrealist thematic cat paintings. Whether he was

the wise embodiment of an ancient Eastern civilization (Wisdom of the Orient Cat, 1964), the

neer-do-well pool shark sporting a girly-cat tie (Cat from the Wrong Side of the Tracks,

1964), the biblically cloaked Joseph, who saved Egypt from starvation (Joseph Katz and His

Coat of Many Colors, 1970), or the Clouseauian inspector sleuthing a felon (Cat Detective

in the Wrong Part of Town, 1969), Teds intentions went far deeper. Disguised as a potpourri

of nonsense, these works combined his vivid imagination with a thoughtful understanding

of human nature. Truths whispered from these playful paintings and, if examined closely,

one could see Ted winking from every whiskered face.

OV E R T IM E T H E C AT I N T H E H AT B E C AME

MOR E T H AN A R E CURR I N G C H A R AC T E R

F O R T E D ; I T A LSO MOR PH ED I N TO H I S

A LT ER EGO , SUR FAC I NG R EPEATEDLY I N H I S

S U R R E A L I S T T H EMAT I C C AT PA I N T I N G S .

74

Cat in the Cradle doing Cats in the CradleINK, PENCIL AND WATERCOLOR ON BOARD

101


Pen & Ink (pencil and crayon)

Drawing was innate for Ted. He doodled on notepads all the way through high school and

college, and when he and his sister, Marnie, were young, he even drew a mural of crazy

animals in her bedroom between wallpaperings. His black loose-leaf Oxford notebook is now

an archived piece of ephemera, whose sixty-eight pages are mostly pen-and-ink cartoons.

Precious few pages have lecture notes.

At Oxford, Anglo-Saxon for Beginners was the class he shared with Helen, who would become

his wife in 1927. Bemused by Teds wandering mind and fascinated by his drawings, one day

she caught him illustrating John Miltons Paradise Lost by sketching the angel Uriel sliding

down a sunbeam, oiling the beam along the way with a tuba-shaped can. Youre crazy to be a

professor, she told him after class. What you really want to do is draw.

Teds first professional sale, a cartoon The Saturday Evening Post purchased for twenty-five

dollars and published on July 16, 1927, was all the encouragement he needed to pack his bag and

board a train for New York City. Before the summer ended, he had landed a seventy-five-dollar-

a-week job as a writer and artist for Judge magazine, the self-proclaimed worlds wittiest weekly.

This was Teds big breakthroughthe one that allowed him to marry Helen that November.

During the hard-pressed early 1930s, Ted supported them by selling

cartoons, often with vignettes or short stories, to Life, College Humor,

Vanity Fair, and Ballyhoo; his Flit insecticide advertising comics began

appearing in Colliers, The New Yorker, and Time. In the early 1940s, the

daily newspaper PM began publishing his political cartoons. He now had

enjoyed a decade-long legitimate career, one launched on the formidable

combination of his wit and his pen.

The volume of Teds illustrations contributed to the rapid maturity of his draftsmanship. By the

time he was illustrating his childrens books, his deft final-line drawings seemed effortless. One

of the distinguishing elements of many of those early drawings was the use of saturated black

India ink for the background, visually outlining and popping the imagery forward. This

technique naturally carried over into Teds more sophisticated paintings. (Black-and-white, as

well as full-color examples of this method, are pictured throughout this book.)

Like Norman Rockwell, Ted Geisel created every rough sketch, preliminary drawing, final line

drawing, and finished work for each page of every project he illustrated. Today that work is

typically farmed out to a team of artisans who do the artistic heavy lifting. Ted was from an era

and a mindset in which the artist lived or died by his own hand.

The December 17, 1960, New Yorker profiled Ted, describing his drawing board as a drafting

table with a sloping work surface on which he also kept his typewriter, typing at a tilt. The

Office, as Ted called his Tower studio, had walls covered with cork, so that he could pin up

illustrations and watch storylines develop. His bookcases were filled with the mysteries and

biographies he would read until the ideas began to flow. But the focus of the room was his

draftsmans desk and reclining chair, from which he commanded a spectacular 180-degree view

of the coastline from Oceanside to Mexico. Audrey recalls, I cant imagine Ted really being

productive without that view.

L I K E NORMAN ROC KWE L L , T E D G E I S E L

C R E AT E D E V E RY ROUGH S K E T CH ,

P R E L IM I N A RY D R AW I NG , F I N A L L I N E

D R AW I NG , A ND F I N I S H ED WOR K F O R E ACH

PAG E O F E V E RY P RO J E C T H E I L L U S T R AT E D .

UntitledCRAYON ON NEWSPRINT

114

UntitledWATERCOLOR, CRAYON AND PENCIL ON PAPER

UntitledPEN AND INK, PENCIL ON BOARD

115

UntitledCRAYON ON PAPER

123


Seussian Abstraction

Many famous childrens writers had no children of their ownLewis Carroll, Edward Lear,

Beatrix Potter, Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak, the husband-wife teams of Margret

and H.A. Rey, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss, and, of course, Ted Geisel.

Over the years, Ted would occasionally mention his discomfort around children, especially

large groups of them. However, he was particularly fond of his great-nephew and namesake,

Ted Owens. How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was dedicated to him the year after he was

born. Not only did Ted delight in the boys company but he also welcomed him into his studio

when he was working. Young Ted noticed everything and loved being there. Ted showed him

how to squirt acrylic paints on paper, swirl them with a palette knife, and finally smash them

with another piece of paper to create abstract color blotchesit was a great artistic adventure

that was all their own.

These playful pieces artistically fall within the category of abstract

expressionism, the first specifically American art movement to become

influential worldwide. Originally coined Action Painting in 1952 by

Harold Rosenberg, the art critic for The New Yorker, Rosenbergs

classic definition of the new movement could just as easily have been a

description of the studio experience for Ted and his nephew. At a certain

moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in

which to act. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

That certainly was the way that Ted and his nephew saw their paintingsimpulsive, inspired

nonsensical happenings that delighted them both. Ted Owens spoke to Geisels biographers,

Judith and Neil Morgan, of those formative years with his uncle. He believed that life was a

place to have fun, Ted explained. It was a game, and doing crazy things was part of it. Wed

be sitting out beside the pool for breakfast and hed make me laugh so hard that I could barely

eat. Later, when as a teenager Ted attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena,

their bond grew even stronger. I was living and breathing painting and art because Uncle Ted

said painting has to be full-time if youre going to be any good.

O N E E Y E S E E S L I K E P I C AS SO ,

T H E OT H E R L I K E WH I S T L E R S MOTH E R .

TED GEISEL IN 1979

BETWEEN CATARACT OPERATIONS.

UntitledOIL AND PENCIL ON PAPER

UntitledACRYLIC ON PAPER

134

153

P UB L I S H ED A RCH I V E S , L O S T A ND R A R E WOR K S

Scenes from a Theatrical Production that Never Was

When Ted Geisel was twenty-two, he was already in love with the theater, with travel, and with

Paris. During his sojourns around Europe in 1926, he returned to the City of Lights time and

again, calling it perfect. He wrote to his Dartmouth College confidant, Whit Campbell, from

Zurich, I saw a few shows in Paris (Doug Fairbanks and Mae Murray, of course, on the side.)

Mary Garden was at the Opra-Comique in Pellas and Mlisande and it was pleasing to hear

what a Chicago girl can do with Debussy. But the show that is attracting the American trade is

still the Folies-Bergre. I had to go (I always go there to release imprisoned sex instincts).

The legendary cabaret, Folies-Bergre, was at the height of its popularity in 1926, featuring

Josephine Baker and Mistinguett, Maurice Chevalier and Charlie Chaplin. Always providing an

impressive array of entertainment, a typical bill of fare at the Folies included song, ballet,

acrobatics, pantomime, and, of course, the trademark bawdy and bold dancers.

Artists, writers, and celebrities, as well as the nobility of Europe, were drawn to the Folies-

Bergre for its cross-cultural, libertine experience. douard Manet and Guy de Maupassant

both frequented the Folies, Manet immortalizing it in oil, in Bar at the Folies-Bergre (1882),

and Maupassant in words, in Bel-Ami (1885). Ert designed gloriously extravagant deco

costumes and stage sets for the Folies from 1919 to 1930. In the early thirties, two friends

concentrated on the underbelly backstage. Brassa photographed its dancers in bare black and

white, and Henry Miller wrote about them in Tropic of Cancer.

Ted Geisels fascination with the theater prompted him to paint four early watercolors, which

together are entitled Scenes from a Theatrical Production that Never Was. With their art

deco architecture and scantily clad exotic performers, these pieces are reminiscent of the

Folies-Bergre of the twenties, and they humorously and irresistibly bear the Seuss brand.

PFC Filers StoryWATERCOLOR AND TEMPURA ON PAPER

193

P UB L I S H ED A RCH I V E S , L O S T A ND R A R E WOR K S

Secrets of the Deep

Ted Geisel and Standard Oil enjoyed a twenty-five-year advertising relationship that saw the

Geisels through the Great Depression and also allowed Ted to indulge his artistic creativity.

In the biography by Judith and Neil Morgan, Ted explained: It wasnt the greatest pay,

but it covered my overhead so I could experiment with my drawings.

This mutually beneficial relationship began in May 1928 and evolved into Ted developing

multiple campaigns for the companys products, including a considerable amount of work for

Essomarine oil and lubricants.

When Essomarine launched its line of boating lubricants in 1934, it turned to Ted because

of his success with the companys car motor oil. The result was five fun years of Essomarine

advertisements and the creation of the famed Seuss Navy (1936-1949). The campaign began

with a thirty-page booklet, Secrets of the Deep, filled with Dr. Seuss illustrations and text by

Old Captain Taylor (a.k.a. Ted Geisel), whose name could not help but conjure up the then

popular Old Taylor bourbon.

By 1936, Essomarine had distributed 75,000 copies of Secrets of the Deep.

That summer, Secrets of the Deep, Vol. II came out to the delight of Seuss

Navy members. It was more playful and humorous than the first booklet,

but still steeped in sound yachting advice. By 1939, there were 2,000

Seuss Navy members. Their Admirals membership certificate read: He

is entitled to courtesies due his rank from mermaids, clam diggers, lobster

pot pullers and wild dinghy tamers. He must be accorded the official salute

at all times and is empowered to order the sun over the yardarm when the

occasion demands. This commission will continue in force as long as kangaroo fish, barnacles

and rocking chair sailors abound the seas. Full-fledged Seuss Navy Admirals included the

businessman and philanthropist Vincent Astor, the bandleader Guy Lombardo, and the famed

aviator Jacqueline Cochran. Secrets of the Deep, Vol. II was published while Ted was working

on his first childrens book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1937).

In 1947, Ted produced one more booklet for Essomarine, The Log of the Good Ship. Its

foreword joked that the advice in the two previous Secrets of the Deep volumes had in fact

caused the incidence of minor marine disasters to skyrocket by several hundred per cent.

In a less than redemptive move, we have brought out this handsome, illuminated Ships Log

in the sincere hope and confidence that it will help carry on the cataclysmic work begun by

the earlier volumes.

F U L L- F L E DG ED S E U S S N AV Y A DM I R A LS

I N C L UD ED T H E B U S I N E S SMAN A ND

P H I L A N T H RO P I S T V I N C EN T AS TOR ,

T H E BA ND L E AD E R G U Y L OMBARDO

( P I C T U R ED ) , A N D T H E FAMED AV I ATO R

JACQU E L I N E C O CHRAN .

241

Sea-Going Dilemma FishPLASTER, HORN, OIL, ON WOOD MOUNT

307

E D I TO R I A L WOR K S

Magazine Editorial Cartoons

In the 1930s, Teds humor was everywhere. The country needed considerable cheering up,

and Life, New York Woman, College Humor, University, Vanity Fair, and Judge magazines

obliged with Dr. Seuss and others who could elicit laughter. Magazines sold for ten to thirty-five

cents; movies cost a quarter. These were the only affordable distractions in ten long years of

gloom. The difference between the two was that magazines could be sharedpassed around

and worn out. And they were. During this decade, Dr. Seuss found his audience.

Teds images were visually strong, often published as a full page or a two-page spread, many

making their point with little more than a brief caption. Some were thematic, as well, with

significant copy that gave more to think about while laughing. Either way, readers were

confronted with issues such as the displacement of Native Americans or the futility of social

climbing. They were even comically introduced to the idea of the magic bullet thirty years

before it would become a tragic part of our vernacular. Throughout, Ted was analyzing the

culture and commenting on it.

What is also intriguing about these cartoons is the early appearance of some of the Seuss

characters, which now enjoy literary immortality. Horton appears, and Yertle, too. Ted would

subsequently name Horton after his Dartmouth classmate Horton Conrad (25) and dedicate

Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories to another college buddy, Donald Bartlett (24).

Then there are the Seussian machines.

Teds propensity for the mechanically outrageous is obvious in Incidental Music for a New

Years Eve Party, which was published as a black-and-white center spread in Judge magazine

on January 2, 1932, and again in color in the Danish magazine Illustreret Familie-Journal,

circa 1932. This work embodies all the best of Teds musically exaggerated imagination and is

an early hallmark that set the stage for an elaborate history of made-up vehicles, machines,

and instruments. A close look reveals a quartet of xylophone players, whose wooden bars are

replaced by a crescendo of pots; quadruplets sharing a lone clarinet; a concertina requiring

both buttons and bellows pushers; percussionists keeping the orchestras beat with feathers;

a fish masquerading as a saxophone, or vice versa; a brass section with no horn bearing any

resemblance to another, except for a recurring tip of the hat to bagpipes; and a sideways

conductor happily soldiering on, eyes shut.

Thirty-four years later, the beloved 1966 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

came onto our televisions and into our lives to stay. Its instrumental images are reminiscent of

the virtuoso creativity in Incidental Music. In the animated film, multiple musicians perform

on a single oversized horn. Every musical contraption is big and well amplifiedwheels, bells,

and whistles abound. This instance of Teds propensity for artistic recycling is notable because

not only had several years passed but the new rendition also crossed mediums from canvas to

collaborative filmmaking.

314

Leading the ParadePEN AND INK

See page 345 for artwork in original context.

348

Bunzel, Peter. Wacky World

of Dr. Seuss, Life (April 6,

1959): 107-108, 110, 113.

Burchell, Sam. Architectural

Digest Visits: Dr. Seuss,

Architectural Digest

(December 1978): 88-93.

Cahn, Robert. The Wonderful

World of Dr. Seuss,

The Saturday Evening Post

(July 6, 1957): 17-19, 42, 46.

Cohen, Charles D. The Seuss

the Whole Seuss and Nothing

but the Seuss. New York:

Random House, Inc., 2004.

Freeman, Donald.

The Nonsensical World of

Dr. Seuss, McCalls

(November 1964): 115, 200-201.

Freeman, Don. Dr. Seuss

From Then To Now,

San Diego Magazine

(May 1986): 132-139, 242-243.

Geisel, Audrey. The Secret

Art of Dr. Seuss. New York:


Geisel, Theodor Seuss.

Letters to Whitney Campbell

(1926-1928): Private Papers

of Thomas Campbell.

Harper, Hilliard. The Private

World of Dr. Seuss,

Los Angeles Times Magazine

(May 25, 1986): 12-15.

Hawkins, Karen. Scribblings

of Seuss tell the story of a

friendship, Milwaukee Journal

Sentinel (March 2, 1999).

Humphrey, Hal. Zoos Who?

Dr. Seuss, Thats Who,

Coronet (December 1964):

114-120.

Jerman, Paul. Theodor

Seuss Geisel Dartmouth

College Brief Biographies,

Class of 1925 (March 1938):

Number 2.

Kahn, E.J., Jr. Profiles

Childrens Friend, The New

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