In the Press - Bulk of Sendak collection leaving Rosenbach
“Nearly half a century ago, the Rosenbach Museum and Library began building a relationship with the young author and illustrator Maurice Sendak, who very quickly started using the townhouse museum on Delancey Place as a repository for his original drawings, manuscripts, proofs, and rare editions.
Through the years the numbers mounted, and today about 10,000 items of Sendakiana, from original artwork to finished editions, fill the Rosenbach - the museum's best calling card with generations that grew up with his books.
But now that card is being recalled.”
In fact, Maurice Sendak never gifted his original artwork to the Rosenbach Museum. Now, two years after he died aged 83, the trustees managing his legacy have demanded that the Sendak Collection be returned to them, “ending a bond between artist and institution that many assumed would continue in perpetuity”, Peter Dobrin writes. The trustees intend to build up a museum and study center in Sendak’s home in Ridgefield, Connecticut.