With Halloween fast approaching, it seemed like a perfect time to blog about the Edward Gorey House. For those that don’t know about this famous artist, the Captain Freeman Inn is very close to his museum in Yarmouthport, which is a perfect place to see many of his pieces….some of them down right spooky!
Edward St. John Gorey (1925-2000) lived a remarkable life and was considered a child prodigy. He began drawing at age two and taught himself to read at age three. He excelled in school and graduated from Francis Parker. With pending draft notices at the age of 17, Gorey enrolled for some art courses at the Art Institute of Chicago before entering the U.S. Army. He served during World War II from 1943 until after the end of the war—primarily at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah.
In 1946 he enrolled at Harvard (majoring in French Literature) and began pursuing numerous artistic interests, publishing stories, poems, designing sets, directing and writing for the influential Poets Theatre. He was offered a position with Doubleday’s new imprint Doubleday Anchor in New York City and became a significant figure in their art department, designing more than fifty covers and, more importantly, becoming recognized as a major commercial illustrator. In the mid-1960’s Gorey turned to freelance writing and illustration—a position he maintained for the rest of his life.
Lucky for us- Gorey’s family had visited and lived on Cape Cod for years and he spent most of his summers here. In 1979, with royalties from the New York Dracula production, he purchased a two-hundred year old sea captain’s home on the Yarmouth Port Common and in 1983 resolved to leave New York City and live on the Cape. Here Gorey became even more active with his small experimental plays, continuing to publish widely, exhibit his art, create etchings and maintain a grueling workload of commercial projects.
A longtime advocate of animal welfare, Gorey kept pets from his earliest years, and cats during his New York and Cape Cod years. He left his estate to The Edward Gorey Charitable Trust which he established for the welfare of all living creatures including not only cats, dogs, whales and birds, but also bats, insects and even invertebrates. After his death in 2000 his Cape Cod home was converted into the Edward Gorey House, a museum whose profits and programs help benefit animals rights and literacy causes. Located in the park-like setting of the Yarmouth Port common on an elegant “horseshoe” of several attractive old New England homes, the Edward Gorey House has become a landmark cultural attraction contributing to the community with annual exhibitions, children’s events and literary programs (for children as well as adults) The House is open to the public mid- April through December) with an annually changing exhibit and permanent displays.
A few tidbits on Gorey-
Although Gorey’s books were popular with children, he did not associate with children much and had no particular fondness for them. Gorey never married, professed to have little interest in romance, and never discussed any specific romantic relationships in interviews.
Gorey is typically described as an illustrator. His books may be found in the humor and cartoon sections of major bookstores, but books such as The Object Lesson have earned serious critical respect as works of surrealist art.
Many think of Gorey’s work as Gothic. Interesting to read a quote from Gorey on this subject- “If you’re doing nonsense it has to be rather awful, because there’d be no point. I’m trying to think if there’s sunny nonsense. Sunny, funny nonsense for children—oh, how boring, boring, boring. And that’s true, there really isn’t. And there’s probably no happy nonsense, either.”
This time of the year the museum is open on the weekends:
October 13 – December 31
Fri/Sat: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Sun: 12:00 – 4:00pm
Now is a perfect time to plan a visit to our Cape Cod Bed and Breakfast which can include a fun tour of the Edward grey House. What better way to get into the holiday spirit. The museum also includes an extensive gift shop filled with unique gift and holiday cards.
Information in this blog was collected from http://www.edwardgoreyhouse.org and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gorey
