Edward Gorey Exhibit at Columbia University

Andrew Alpern has been collecting Edward Gorey's books, artwork, and other "ephemera" for 40 years, and he was a friend of the writer. Now he has donated 700 items to Columbia University where they are staging a show to honor Gorey.

From the Columbia Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Gorey Preserved

Kempner Gallery
March 5 - July 27, 2012

The Rare Book and Manuscript Library presents a major exhibition of works by the idiosyncratic illustrator, designer, and writer, Edward Gorey (1925-2000). The exhibition draws from the large and important collection of Gorey's works donated to the Columbia University Libraries by noted architectural historian Andrew Alpern in 2010.



The extensive collection, which contains over 700 items, includes nearly every edition of every work published by Gorey, in addition to illustrations for dust jackets and magazines, etchings, posters, and design ephemera. By any measure, this is a major gathering of Gorey's work.

The exhibition also includes original, limited edition etchings, posters, books written and illustrated by Gorey, books written by others but illustrated by Gorey, books whose cover art was created by Gorey, foreign translations of Gorey books, postcards and Christmas cards, theater-related materials, Dracula-related materials, LP record jackets and CD cover art, Metropolitan Opera and New York City Ballet-related items, various stuffed creatures, photographs of Gorey, and a fur parka that he owned.

During the panel discussion, Alpern also contributed some of his memories to fill out Gorey’s personal side. He described Gorey’s effortless and encyclopedic knowledge of books and movies, his “low-key” charm, and his distinctive fashion (fur coat, scarf, big beard, high-top sneakers). He remembered a particular visit to Gorey’s home in Cape Cod when they drove around in Gorey’s yellow Volkswagen Beetle with the license plate that read OGDRED—from another pseudonym, Ogdred Weary.



Alpern took issue with several obituaries of that described Gorey as “macabre”; while some of Gorey’s art was dark, he said, the man was anything but. Alpern remembered him this way: “Friendly, outgoing, often outrageous, enthusiastic, with a voice that soared and swooped all over the octaves, and expressive hands and fingers that reinforced his words with elaborate gestures, and heavy, clanking rings. Edward was nothing if not instantly noticeable, with a distinctively odd appearance, and equally odd attitudes and ideas: perhaps the quintessential New Yorker in that regard.”