This facsimile edition of a 1922 children’s book features seventy-three dynamic and whimsical woodcut illustrations-the first woodcuts that the famed American craftsman Wharton Esherick produced. A high-quality replica authorised by the Wharton Esherick Museum, this book reveals the foundation of Esherick’s direction as an artist. Edited by Museum director Paul Eisenhauer, it also features a foreword by Museum assistant curator Laura Heemer. The illustrations frame verses that introduce children to the principles of evolution, a highly controversial topic at the time: the book was published three years before the famous Scopes Monkey trial of 1925 that resulted in the inclusion of the teaching of evolution in public schools. Drawn by the excitement of the controversy, Esherick threw his passion into these illustrations. Afterward he would go on to carve over 300 woodcuts, leading to decorative carving, and ultimately, to Esherick’s realisation that he was a sculptor rather than a painter.
AUTHOR: Mary E. Marcy (1877 1922) was a labor activist and leading figure in the Socialist Party. She served as the editor of the International Socialist Review, the most popular and influential revolutionary journal of the period. Her books ‘Out of the Dumps’ and ‘Shop Talks on Economics’ are classics of early twentieth century American socialist writing. Persecuted by the U.S. government under the Sedition Act, Marcy committed suicide shortly before this book was published.
American sculptor, furniture maker, painter and printmaker Wharton Esherick (1887 1970) was part of a community of artists that helped to shape the course of American Modernism. His studio in Paoli, Pennsylvania, is open to the public as part of the Wharton Esherick Museum. Learn more at www.whartonesherickmuseum.org 73 b/w woodcut illustrations
