Wendell Minor’s America

Wendell Minor’s America celebrates the artist’s four-decade career, highlighting his twenty-fifth anniversary as a preeminent illustrator of children’s books, each inspired by his love of history, art, science, and the natural world. Artworks gleaned from his expansive visual chronicles, and commentary reflecting on his collaborations with our nation’s most prominent authors, scientists, and historians, showcase a quarter-century of unforgettable picture book art. Original artworks, artifacts, and references for Reaching for the Moon and Look to the Stars by Buzz Aldrin, Sitting Bull Remembers by Ann Turner, Abraham Lincoln Comes Home by Robert Burleigh, and Arctic Son by Jean Craighead George, among others, will be on view.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.

Whether or not you go, America the Beautiful is illustrated by Wendell Minor, an extraordinarily talented fine artist who has received more than two hundred awards for his work. Authors refer to him as a "quiet genius" who creates with simplicity and elegance, a "master" at capturing the essence of the written word in vivid imagery, of creating brilliant paintings that evoke the true spirit of story and place. He has illustrated hundreds of covers for many of the most popular books of the past few decades.

Now, inspired by Katharine Lee Bates's classic verse, Minor gives readers his first picture book-beautiful visual accompaniment for an American standard. Traversing the entire nation, from the Empire State Building to the Grand Tetons, from the Alaskan coast to the Florida Everglades; encompassing multiple eras, from Pilgrims to wagon trains, from the Wright brothers to NASA, Minor takes us on a journey across land and time-literally from sea to shining sea.

America the Beautiful