Barry Moser metamorphosed from a celebrated artist to a storyteller this weekend at the Brandywine River Museum.Members of the Brandywine River Museum previewed the “Barry Moser, Bookwright” exhibit Friday night. After the exhibit opened to the public, Moser told his life story to a room full of people.

The exhibit begins with a wood engraving “And the Sea Stopped Raging” one of his illustrations for the Pennyroyal Caxton “The Holy Bible.” The engravings evoke the story’s drama not unlike another illustrator known to that gallery, NC Wyeth.

A series of portraits including those of Walt Whitman, Eudora Welty, Mark Twain portray visages from history. Books on display are the two volumes of the above mentioned bible, “Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland” and “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." The exhibit ends with a series of watercolor illustrations “Blessings of the Beast” and "Bear from “Through the Mickle Woods.” See below.

 

Assistant Curator Lee Wierenga traveled to Moser’s studio in North Hampton, Mass. more than a year ago. She selected works which showed the “fullness of his career” and some of those illustrations for which he had received awards. The 75 works in the current exhibit are mostly from his personal collection combined with a two works that are part of the collection of the Brandywine River Museum.

Moser’s personal story starts in Tennessee. He was put in military school and discouraged from art because it didn’t fit his family’s image of what a male should do. Drawing was his constant companion. Academics, specifically reading, proved almost impossible. Not until dyslexia was diagnosed in his daughter did Moser realize that his reading problems might have had the same basis.

Moser’s journey detoured from art during a period when he was a Methodist preacher. Decades later, that experience would bring the depth and passion to his illustration of “The Holy Bible.” He describes the “courage, discipline and stamina” that were ever present for four years to produce the work as a “gift” which is to be given away.

The need for artistic development and the abhorrence to racial intolerance led him to New England, he said. Mentors Harold McGrath and Leonard Baskin led him ultimately to becoming a bookwright and, in many of his works, controlling every facet of book design. Moser attributes his cure of dyslexia to typesetting. Putting letters upside down and backwards in preparation for printing eventually enabled him to read the traditionally printed page.

Moser is Professor-in-Residence in Art & Printer to the College at Smith College.

The exhibit continues through May 22.