The Extraordinary Range of Edward Gorey on Display
By Marketing and Communications | 03-18-2025
The Edward Gorey of “Mystery!” or “Dracula” or even the “Gashlycrumb Tinies” may be familiar, but there is so much more to know.
Author, artist, and designer Edward Gorey (1925-2000) created work that has permeated both our commercial and cultural worlds. A showcase of his 50-year career, “Ubiquitous Edward Gorey,” opens April 10 at Texas A&M University’s Cushing Memorial Library & Archives and runs through Sept. 17, 2025.
The exhibition features more than 500 items including books from Cushing’s extensive Gorey holdings and biographic materials, personal items, and examples of Gorey’s creative output from the Miller Family Edward Gorey Collection. On view will be largely unknown drawings and paintings from Gorey’s youth, first editions of his early primary books, and other rare materials.
“The exhibition honors the centenary of Gorey’s birth, and also provides a biographical context to explore his wide range of work,” said Beth Kilmarx, assistant university librarian for special collections and co-curator of the exhibit.
Distinctive Broad-Ranging Career
While his best-known creations include the illustrations for the animated introduction to PBS’ long-running “Mystery!” series and designs for the 1977 Broadway revival of “Dracula,” those are just two achievements.
Gorey authored and illustrated more than 100 of his own books and fully illustrated, drew covers, chose typography, and designed hundreds of books by authors including T.S. Eliot, H.G. Wells, and John Bellairs, who wrote “The House with a Clock in its Walls.”
But all these are still just a part of the enigmatic artist’s vast creative pursuits. Gorey designed costumes and sets for the ballet and the opera; illustrated magazine stories and articles; and created advertising artwork throughout his long career.
Edward Gorey the Person
“Rather than a gloomy, brooding hermit, as he has often been described, Gorey appreciated the company of friends and family,” according to collector and co-curator Patrice Miller. “He was a brilliant, talented, fun-loving person who left behind a vast trove of work to study and enjoy.”
With this exhibit, Texas A&M affords a unique opportunity: to view the broadest range of Gorey’s work ever shown in one location, outside of the Edward Gorey House Museum.
“Ubiquitous Edward Gorey” has been made possible through the cooperation of the Edward Gorey Charitable Trust.
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