Exhibit showcases changing faces of characters of Oz
AMHERST, Mass. --She started off looking like a clownish crazy woman -- her long hair was in a wild braid and one eye was popped wide open. Her petticoat and baggy skirt were more outlandish than frightening.
That was in 1900, when the Wicked Witch of the West made her debut in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." But since W.W. Denslow first drew her for the pages of L. Frank Baum's classic children's book, Dorothy's nemesis has changed faces several times.
In 1981, Andy Warhol silkscreened her as Margaret Hamilton, freezing the actress in the green-faced role she played in Hollywood's 1939 production of the story. Four years later, artist Barry Moser turned her into Nancy Reagan, placing the pointy-hatted first lady against a dismal black backdrop.
"I'm playing very close to obvious and corny imagery here," Moser wrote at the time.
The original drawings and reinterpretations of the Wicked Witch and other characters from Oz are on display at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in an exhibit that commemorates the 150th anniversary of the births of Baum and Denslow while paying tribute to the story's staying power.
The exhibit traces the story of Baum's book, from the cyclone that whisks Dorothy's Kansas farmhouse to the mystical land of Oz through the young girl's return home thanks to her magical slippers. Along the yellow brick road, she and her companions -- the tin woodsman, lion and scarecrow -- must confront the powerful wicked witch and find their way into the Emerald City, where the omniscient wizard is revealed as a short, bald man with no real power hiding behind a curtain.
As the show retells the adventure, it highlights the different ways artists have interpreted it.
The clean lines of Denslow's Art Nouveau-inspired drawings give way to more elaborate and detailed images in later reworkings of the book.
There's Charles Santore's 1991 depiction of Munchkinland, where blonde-haired Dorothy is greeted by a crowd of gnome-like characters that look like a band of leprechauns.
And as Dorothy and her gang burst into the Emerald City in Santore's version of events, they're overcome by a world of green where the buildings are based on the works of Antonio Gaudi, a Catalan architect known for his highly stylized designs during the early 1900s.
"(Santore) wanted to recognize the most visionary architect who was working at the time Baum was writing his books," said Nick Clark, the museum's founding director. "It shows how these really good artists have a deep sense of history that they're trying to infuse in their own work."
And sometimes those artists just want to jazz things up.
The tin woodsman, for instance, morphs from Denslow's monochrome compilation of metal parts to the multicolored beer cans and garbage scraps that became the character's costume for "The Wiz," a 1975 musical that spun off a movie version.
And Dorothy -- an almost stocky and seemingly stubborn little girl in the 1900 original -- softens in the images inspired nearly 30 years later by Judy Garland's portrayal of the character in MGM's "Wizard of Oz."
While the 1929 movie helped bring new attention to what was already regarded the most popular children's book of the time, some of the Wizard's purists have a few bones to pick with that version of events.
For one thing, it slightly softened Baum's feminist message that girls can figure things out for themselves without falling apart when things get tough.
"Baum's Dorothy was more aggressive and independent," said Michael Patrick Hearn, the guest curator of the exhibit and author of the "Annotated Wizard of Oz" who is currently writing a biography on Baum. "She doesn't cry all the time like Judy Garland's Dorothy."
The feminist influence was inspired by Baum's mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, the women's rights activist who died just a few years before his book was published.
"All the power in the story is with women," Hearn said. "The good witch and bad witch had the power, and both were women. The Wizard is ineffectual, and Dorothy's three male friends have faults and weaknesses."
Despite those faults -- and maybe in part because of them -- the story has maintained its place as one of the most recognizable children's stories.
"It has that kind of moral value system where good does triumph over evil," Clark said. "It's a pretty damn scary story. But good is victorious at the end, and that still seems to resonate with people."
That was in 1900, when the Wicked Witch of the West made her debut in "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." But since W.W. Denslow first drew her for the pages of L. Frank Baum's classic children's book, Dorothy's nemesis has changed faces several times.
In 1981, Andy Warhol silkscreened her as Margaret Hamilton, freezing the actress in the green-faced role she played in Hollywood's 1939 production of the story. Four years later, artist Barry Moser turned her into Nancy Reagan, placing the pointy-hatted first lady against a dismal black backdrop.
"I'm playing very close to obvious and corny imagery here," Moser wrote at the time.
The original drawings and reinterpretations of the Wicked Witch and other characters from Oz are on display at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in an exhibit that commemorates the 150th anniversary of the births of Baum and Denslow while paying tribute to the story's staying power.
The exhibit traces the story of Baum's book, from the cyclone that whisks Dorothy's Kansas farmhouse to the mystical land of Oz through the young girl's return home thanks to her magical slippers. Along the yellow brick road, she and her companions -- the tin woodsman, lion and scarecrow -- must confront the powerful wicked witch and find their way into the Emerald City, where the omniscient wizard is revealed as a short, bald man with no real power hiding behind a curtain.
As the show retells the adventure, it highlights the different ways artists have interpreted it.
The clean lines of Denslow's Art Nouveau-inspired drawings give way to more elaborate and detailed images in later reworkings of the book.
There's Charles Santore's 1991 depiction of Munchkinland, where blonde-haired Dorothy is greeted by a crowd of gnome-like characters that look like a band of leprechauns.
And as Dorothy and her gang burst into the Emerald City in Santore's version of events, they're overcome by a world of green where the buildings are based on the works of Antonio Gaudi, a Catalan architect known for his highly stylized designs during the early 1900s.
"(Santore) wanted to recognize the most visionary architect who was working at the time Baum was writing his books," said Nick Clark, the museum's founding director. "It shows how these really good artists have a deep sense of history that they're trying to infuse in their own work."
And sometimes those artists just want to jazz things up.
The tin woodsman, for instance, morphs from Denslow's monochrome compilation of metal parts to the multicolored beer cans and garbage scraps that became the character's costume for "The Wiz," a 1975 musical that spun off a movie version.
And Dorothy -- an almost stocky and seemingly stubborn little girl in the 1900 original -- softens in the images inspired nearly 30 years later by Judy Garland's portrayal of the character in MGM's "Wizard of Oz."
While the 1929 movie helped bring new attention to what was already regarded the most popular children's book of the time, some of the Wizard's purists have a few bones to pick with that version of events.
For one thing, it slightly softened Baum's feminist message that girls can figure things out for themselves without falling apart when things get tough.
"Baum's Dorothy was more aggressive and independent," said Michael Patrick Hearn, the guest curator of the exhibit and author of the "Annotated Wizard of Oz" who is currently writing a biography on Baum. "She doesn't cry all the time like Judy Garland's Dorothy."
The feminist influence was inspired by Baum's mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage, the women's rights activist who died just a few years before his book was published.
"All the power in the story is with women," Hearn said. "The good witch and bad witch had the power, and both were women. The Wizard is ineffectual, and Dorothy's three male friends have faults and weaknesses."
Despite those faults -- and maybe in part because of them -- the story has maintained its place as one of the most recognizable children's stories.
"It has that kind of moral value system where good does triumph over evil," Clark said. "It's a pretty damn scary story. But good is victorious at the end, and that still seems to resonate with people."
