WILMINGTON, DE.- The Delaware Art Museum presents From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick this fall. On view from October 18, 2014 through January 11, 2015, this traveling exhibition presents over 100 paintings and drawings by Brian Selznick, an award-winning children’s author and illustrator. Selznick’s world includes images of characters as diverse as magician Harry Houdini, poet Walt Whitman, singer Marian Anderson, and the fictional Hugo Cabret—an orphan who lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station. In 2008, Selznick was awarded the Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which was made into the Oscar award-winning film Hugo (2011), directed by Martin Scorsese.

Selznick’s illustrations animate the imaginations of children and adults with his blending of illusion, history, and adventure. From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick encompasses works from Hugo and 18 of Selznick’s other books, among them The Houdini Box, Walt Whitman: Words for America, Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, and Frindle. The exhibition will also include books, allowing visitors to put each work of art into the context of the story.

From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick expands on the Delaware Art Museum's world- renowned collection of illustration and works by well-known illustrators such as Howard Pyle and N.C. Wyeth. Additional works from the Museum’s Illustration collection will also be on display in the first and second floor galleries through January 2015.

Born in 1966 in Newark, New Jersey, Brian Selznick graduated from the Rhode Island School of Art and Design with the intention of becoming a set designer for the theater. A position designing window displays at Eeyore's Children’s Bookstore in New York City opened his eyes to the world of children’s illustrated literature, inspiring him to write and illustrate his first book, The Houdini Box, in 1991. Selznick subsequently illustrated novels and picture books for other writers, such as The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, 2002, written by Barbara Kerley, for which he won a Caldecott Honor.