Steven Herb will give a gallery talk on the influence of Lynd Ward’s work on the development of graphic novels and on the mid-20th century revolution in children’s literature in the United States on March 24, at 4:30 p.m., in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library on Penn State's University Park campus.
Lynd Ward (1905–1985), a printmaker and illustrator extraordinaire, created graphic novels, original illustrations for both The Silver Pony and The Biggest Bear, as well as the original woodblocks for Ward’s 1934 illustrations for Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, which was reproduced in 2006 in a deluxe, limited edition by Centipede Press.
Ongoing extensive gifts to Penn State's Rare Books and Manuscripts from Robin Ward Savage, daughter of the late Lynd Ward, and other family members are making this collection one of the most important centers for the study of his work.
Herb is head of the Education and Behavioral Sciences Library at Penn State and director of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book in Library of Congress sponsored in Pennsylvania by Penn State University Libraries.
The talk is free and open to the public. An exhibit of Lynd Ward's work, "Storyteller without Words," is on display through May 7, 2010, in The Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library. It is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information call 814-865-1793.