For almost two decades Oliver Jeffers has worked in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, and sculpture. Best known for his distinctive and delightful picture books for children, he is an artist who likes to tell stories, ask questions, draw pictures, and make life enjoyable for those who follow his work. While investigating the ways the human mind understands the world, his work also functions as comic relief in the face of futility. Jeffers came to the Gardner Museum as an Artist-in-Residence in early June, 2022. Months before, he began creating a new work for the Gardner’s Anne H. Fitzpatrick façade. His residency lined up with its installation and his exhibition at Praise Shadows Art Gallery in Brookline, MA.
Titled Universes, Jeffer’s façade continued his exploration of the cosmos showing the plural perspectives of our internal and external spaces of wonder. The large-scale image depicts a woman in her own universe at home deeply engrossed in a storybook—while outside the blue night reaches up and out of the frame. The glow from her window is bright and warm, and above her the vast blue cosmos extends out to planets, stars, comets, and beyond. In addition to the full-scale image, Jeffers created a smaller limited-edition print for purchase. The work opened in conjunction with Drawing The Curtain, an exhibition highlighting Maurice Sendak’s designs for opera and ballet, and an exhibition of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s rare Book of Hours by Jean Bordichon.
Jeffers returned with his family in August and had the opportunity to delve further into the collection and to talk with Museum staff. Jeffer’s visited the Archives and later with his family took a field trip to the Museum’s greenhouses in Hingham. During the month of August the Conservation team was working on several projects including preparing a series of drawings by John Singer Sargent on loan to the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Jeffers was able to look at objects from the Short Gallery including a 16th century plate that was being treated and repaired. Although, the highlight of his visit to the Conservation Labs may have been the opportunity to look through the drawers filled with the team’s brushes, tools, solutions, and equipment.
August 4 was a fun-filled “Oliver Jeffers themed day” with coloring pages from Jeffers’s books and other activities. Jeffers delighted fans by signing books in the Education Studio. His short film, Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, ran multiple times in Calderwood Hall. He also gave a talk about his work to fans of all ages and a special reading of his yet to be published book, Meanwhile Back on Earth…Finding Our Place Through Time and Space. Later that evening he held a conversation with curator Pieranna Cavalchini, the Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art at the Gardner, in the Courtyard about life, art, books and his process.
Oliver Jeffers’s (b. 1977, Australia) critically acclaimed picture books have been translated into over fifty languages and sold over 14 million copies worldwide. His original artwork has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Palais Auersperg in Vienna. Jeffers has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award, Bologna Rigazzi Award, An Irish Book Award, a United Kingdom Literary Association Award, and a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) from Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth for Special Services to the Arts. His nineteenth book as author and illustrator was released in October 2022, and he has illustrated several others. Oliver grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he currently divides his time with Brooklyn, NY.