Allan Gurganus: A Writer's Sketchbooks
ALLAN GURGANUS: A WRITER'S SKETCHBOOKS
On View: December 4, 2018-January 19, 2019
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Allan Gurganus began life as a painter. Among his earliest memories: "picking up the red crayon first, the kindergarten kind made flat-edged." He would go on to study fine arts at the University of Pennsylvania. Gurganus's education was interrupted when he was drafted for the Vietnam War. Finding himself stationed on an aircraft carrier in the South China Sea, he kept half-sane by filling dozens of sketchbooks with mythological animals, erotic fantasies, images of home. He discovered the ship's library and, through that, his wish to write. Gurganus's playful drawing first revealed the comic, humane spirit that has kept his books in print.
Celebrating the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library's acquisition of Gurganus's literary archives, The Power Plant Gallery presents sixty drawings and paintings--never before shown. They offer unusual access to one restless narrative imagination at work in the echo chamber of two art forms.
Be sure to join us for the opening reception at the Power Plant Gallery on December 5, 2018, and a reading with Allan Gurganus at the Rubenstein Library, on January 17, 2019.