The Art of Dr. Seuss

What a fabulous in awe the entire time we were there, shows some of his alternative works! Fabooboo book

Theodore Seuss Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, began his career in the 1920’s as an editorial cartoonist. Having long acknowledged being influenced by the Surrealists, Seuss’s career is obviously most known for his 40+ children’s books that have been treasured parts of childhoods for decades.
Yet, it is also known that Seuss longed to be known as a serious artist. He did have works outside that contained within his books, though he shied away from public exhibition of his works and rather strictly forbade it until after he had passed. His wife, Audrey, honored that wish and it was only after his passing that The Art of Dr. Seuss Project came into being. From that project, offering his works for public viewing for the first time, has come a series of galleries dedicated to showing and selling his works. Unbeknownst to me, a mere month ago Indianapolis became home to one of these galleries on the second floor of Keystone at the Crossing (fairly easy access if you take the elevators behind the mall’s food court).
Even if you do not have a full appreciation of Dr. Seuss, it would be nearly impossible to not smile as you find yourself busily shopping away inside one of the city’s most high-​end malls only to look up and see familiar Dr. Seuss characters inside a window front. When you look more closely and realize that the rather small storefront is, in fact, entirely devoted to Dr. Seuss? It’s pure glee.
The glee is somewhat tempered by a couple of important facts — 1) This is a rather small gallery and 2) It’s definitely a higher end gallery in terms of actual purchases and small, artfully written signs throughout inform you that you cannot touch the works but can feel free to take photos of them. There is one shelf containing what is easily the most affordable items in the gallery, smallish prints starting at $ 25 that decrease somewhat with multiple purchases. The vast majority of the gallery is donated to larger, mostly framed, variations of Dr. Seuss’s works and they range in prices from a couple hundred dollars for unframed prints into the thousands.
While a purchase may not necessarily be within the range for every consumer, Keystone at the Crossing is a terrific location for the gallery not just because it does tend to be a mall that attracts higher income consumers but because a good number of those consumers are families. During my visit this evening, a father waiting for his wife at another store came in and brought both a baby and a young daughter. The energy in the gallery became absolutely delightful.
The Art of Dr. Seuss Gallery, as noted, is on the second floor of the mall but is easily accessible by elevator. The gallery itself is also quite wheelchair friendly and anything that would be considered breakable is, for the most part, actually on the wall itself. The exhibit includes both works from Seuss’s published works along with some of his original works that lean more directly toward Surrealism. Everything that I saw was actually for sale, while it was noted that the gallery will be exchanging pieces in and out as certain pieces are sold or simply to make sure the gallery stays fresh.
The Art of Dr. Seuss opened one month ago and, per the absolutely delightful and helpful hostess, it is planned that the gallery will be a permanent fixture. The gallery left me feeling much the same way I did when I used to visit the local Sally Huss Gallery, though certainly the Seuss Gallery adds a strong sense of nostalgia to the mix.
With an aura of whimsy and wonder, The Art of Dr. Seuss adds a delightfully childlike presence inside Keystone at the Crossing and is certainly worth a trip to the mall or simply a trip up to the second floor when you’re at the mall. While it won’t likely take you more than a few minutes to peruse the pieces and their descriptions, it will be a time you absolutely regress joyfully to your childhood and leave smiling.
I do wish, given the myriad of ways in which Seuss appeals to young children, that there had been some thought to an interactive component to the gallery or, minimally, a small area where children could actually experience or at least touch the wonder that is Seuss. While I can appreciate that The Art of Dr. Seuss is the manifestation of Geisel’s lifelong dream of being a «serious» artist, the only thing missing from this delightful gallery is that real sense of surrealism that so many of us felt reading our favorite Seuss book.