Where the Wild Things Are

Sendak suffuses this scene with a sense of expectation as Max haughtily imagines himself out of the confines of his room.  John Vitale, Director of Production at HarperCollins Publishers and long-time friend of Sendak notes, “The moonlight coming down on Max in some of these illustrations is just so important.  And to capture all of that, those subtleties—the color of the sky, the color of the trees, the dimension that all of his artwork has…I mean, these trees are alive.  You look at the illustrations and you’re waiting for them to grow.”

Maurice Sendak, final drawing for Where the wild things are. New York, ca. 1963