SENDAK (Maurice)
Where The Wild Things Are.  Complete Set of Four Double-Page Prints. 1971. 原作
From Maurice Sendak’s portfolio: Pictures (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).
To allow collectors the opportunity to acquire top-grade reproductions of Sendak’s art to hang on their walls, without having to mutilate any of his books, the artist devised this series of fine art color prints chosen to represent his favorite images in creating a collector’s art portfolio. For this purpose, the original artwork was re-photographed at the Rosenbach Museum & Library (Philadelphia), each image printed on single sheets of paper including those pictures which were previously created as double-page spreads. All told, nineteen drawings were selected from eight different book titles including In the Night Kitchen, Zlateh the Goat, and Higglety-Pigglety Pop!  These were boxed in decorative portfolio sets, produced in a limitation of 5000 copies for the USA (another 1000 sets each for Bodley Head, London, and Diogenes, Zurich); there was also another 500 numbered copies on different paper stock which included an additional signed print (a picture of the recumbent “Jennie”, Maurice’s beloved sealyham terrier) especially created for this deluxe limited edition housed in a cloth-backed decorative boards portfolio clam-shell protective box.  But none of the original group of 19 prints were ever issued signed.
In conjunction with a 1996 international tour of Mr Sendak’s original art, we organized 200 sets of each of his Four “Wild Thing” prints would be individually SIGNED IN FULL  by the artist in the lower right corner margin. Whereas in the book these separate pictures are reproduced as double-page spreads divided in the middle and printed on two separate pages with a center crease, here each picture is now printed for the first time on a single sheet of paper.  As he had previously signed several individual prints over the years up to that time for friends and family, it was decided that they should not be numbered to avoid creating a false limitation.
The actual image size of the first three prints measure 235 x 515mm (9-1/4 x 20-3/16 inches) while the fourth print image measures 163 x 510mm (6-7/16 x 20-1/8 inches), each with extra margins on larger paper. Except for some minor handling creases and occasional browning at the edges, these four prints are in very good condition and suitable for matting and framing to enhance any children’s room or collector’s display.