Dr. Seuss. Roald Dahl. Maurice Sendak.
It would be difficult to force anyone to choose a favorite children’s author, considering the indelible impact so many left on the lives of millions of budding readers. However, there is no question Sendak’s name appears near the top of any list worth its weight in ink.
But the "Picasso of children's books” was more than a gifted writer, he was also a skilled illustrator.
Sendak's original artwork featuring a character from “Where the Wild Things Are” sold for $336,000 at Sotheby's on Tuesday. The pre-sale estimate was $300,000 to $600,000.
Sendak first published “Where the Wild Things Are” in 1963, illustrating the pictures himself. It was a hit, connecting with kids in a lasting and substantial way, despite the fact it received pushback from a notable psychiatrist who accused Sendak of glorifying bad behavior and arguing the book could traumatize children.
“[T]he psychiatrist revealed they had never even read the book, and it has gone on to receive many awards,” The Guardian explained.
As of 2009, the book had sold more than 19 million copies.
The artwork that sold Tuesday was created as a promotional poster for the inaugural “New York is Book Country” festival, held from 1979 to 2010. The event’s organizers commissioned a promotional poster each year, beginning with Sendak. Later artists included Charles Schulz and Keith Haring.
Sendak’s poster, a pen, ink and watercolor creation, depicts one of his iconic characters casually resting upon buildings in New York City, munching on an apple and reading a book while leaning against the Empire State Building.
Previously loaned to the Society of Illustrators Memorial in 2013 after Sendak’s death, the work was acquired from Sendak in 1996 and has remained in a private collection since.
In 2022, Sendak’s 25th anniversary watercolor of “Wild Things” sold for a then-record $212,500.
Sotheby’s books and manuscripts specialist Ella Hall said she thinks Sendak is a “great American artist” in addition to his status as a beloved children's author.
The book was based on experiences drawn from his own upbringing as a kid in 1930s Brooklyn, when his relatives would visit each Sunday, much to the young Sendak’s dismay.
“They would lean over you with their foul breath and squeeze you and pinch you, and their eyes are blood-stained and their teeth are big and yellow. Ahh! It was horrible, horrible,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 1993.
He called them his “hideous, beastly relatives.”
These memories directly informed the creatures in his classic children’s book. According to Sendak, he first intended to call the book “Where the Wild Horses Are,” but, after his editor realized he was unable to draw horses, the title was changed and Sendak drew his family members, telling the Times, “They’re all dead now, so I can tell people.”
In 2023, BBC polled 177 experts from 56 countries to compile a list of the 100 Greatest Children’s Books, with “Wild Things” taking the top spot.
Sendak and the book’s resonance with children over decades has often been explained by his unique ability to depict children in a uniquely honest and accurate way.
In The New Yorker’s 1966 piece, “Among the Wild Things,” which profiled Sendak and sought to explain his popularity, writer Nat Hentoff posited that most children books “subscribed[d] to the credo that childhood is a time of innocence — a point of view that, as it is usually interpreted, results in tales and pictures soothing to parents but unreal to the children.”
The difference in “Wild Things” and in Sendak’s approach was the reality with which he portrayed kids, warts and all.
“Here, finally, was a book in which children truly saw their beautifully messy and complicated selves reflected back,” the BBC wrote.
Sendak responded to critics arguing it was too scary for young people by saying, "Where the Wild Things Are was not meant to please everybody — only children."
There are endless sources attempting to explain the secret sauce behind the success of the author and his most famous work, but perhaps none are better than the man himself, who said in a 2009 Spike Jonze-directed documentary of his life, "I think what I’ve offered is different, but not because I drew better than anybody or wrote better than anybody. It was because I was more honest than anybody."
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.