While Rockville has long been a destination for foodies, patrons of the visual arts with a full stomach have had less motivation to venture far into Montgomery County. But for three days, not far from the spot where 20-foot high metal commuters once watched over Route 355, a strange invasion will make its home.
Nestled among buildings that give the unassuming appearance of an industrial park is Huckleberry Fine Art, home to art classes, Painting and Wine events and artists like surreal landscape painter Rob Gonsalves. This weekend the gallery hosts a rare exhibit of lesser-known artwork from one of the great surrealists: Theodor Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss.
Born in 1904, the author of The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, and other iconic children’s books began his career in the 1920s as an illustrator and political cartoonist. You can see his style take form in cartoons made for PM magazine that take on Adolph Hitler. Geisel’s buzzard-like creatures and stacked turtles seem to evoke the natural world under attack in a time of global crisis, and they also suggest the fantastical worlds he would soon create for generations of children.
Yet Geisel longed to be taken seriously as an artist, and harbored a secret collection of less commercial work, some of which takes his signature cat in directions that recall the work of illustrator Louis wain, whose kaleidoscopic cats seems to chart a conventional illustrator’s mental illness.
It seems appropriate that Geisel’s secret art would land at a place called Huckleberry. Along with selected art from his children books, this little-known work will also be on display, including sculptures known as Unorthodox Taxidermy. Fantastical creatures like the Carbonic Walrus, the Two-Horned Drouberhannis, and the Goo-Goo-Eyed Tasmanian Wolghast are perhaps more vivid than your typical Seuss creation, especially in 3D, but they seem no less nightmare-inducing than the Grinch.
What is intriguing about these taxidermied creatures is that Seuss created them—and immediately killed them. These sculptures are not studies of imaginary living creatures, but memorials of rare specimens that were captured and stuffed for otherworldly trophies.
The growing market for grotesque Funko Pop! and other figures have perhaps diminished the impact of Unorthodox Taxidermy, which may not seem so fantastic in comparison, But Geisel’s secret art may well have been ahead of its time; to see these creatures now is almost comforting, even if it suggests a mounted Lorax on your wall.
The Art of Dr. Seuss Collection will be on display at Huckleberry Fine Art, 12051 Nebel Street, Rockville, MD 20852. Bubbles and berries receptions will be held on Friday, September 9 and Saturday, September 10 from 7 – 11 p.m. The works may also be viewed during the gallery’s open house hours, Saturday September 10 from 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. and Sunday, September 11 from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.