New York Public Library

A couple weeks ago I stumbled across the New York Public Library's online Digital Gallery. This is a great site for a number of reasons, but what I was excited to find were good quality scans of original artwork by W. W. Denslow for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I knew that many of the original drawings were in one of the print collections of the library, but I didn't realize they were so easily accessible online. And - you can order prints, note cards, tote bags, coffee mugs or ornaments of any of the images!

I ended up trying a coffee mug of one of the drawings, the Deadly Poppy Field chapter title page, and a print of a rare poster drawn by Denslow for Father Goose, His Book. I was surprised that the color of the background on the poster I received is quite a bit browner than the digital image I'm showing, but it is nicely printed. The coffee cup would benefit from having the image centered on the cup rather than on one side - or, by offering the choice of placing 2 images on the cup. Still, it's a fun idea to play with.

There are several Denslow posters in the collection, including a few for Rand McNally books with Denslow covers - I've featured several of the titles in earlier blog entries. To view pieces, go to the link below and enter Denslow in the search box.
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm