Explore Eric Carle's Modernist Art Inspirations and Creative Influences in a New Exhibition

A new exhibition at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art examines the movements and artists that shaped Eric Carle’s distinctive visual language. On view September 19, 2026–September 5, 2027, Eric Carle’s Modernist Inspirations traces his formative years in Germany, when his high school art teacher secretly introduced him to the work of so-called “degenerate” artists banned by the regime, making a lasting impression on Carle’s own work. The exhibition highlights his admiration for the Bauhaus school and Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) group, presenting selections from his oeuvre in dialogue with works by modernist figures such as Anni Albers, Marc Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, Fujimori Shizuo, Paul Klee, Oscar Kokoschka, Fernand Léger, August Macke, René Magritte, Franz Marc, and Pablo Picasso, all on loan from area museums. The exhibition will feature more than 60 works in two rotations, the first from September 19, 2026–February 28, 2027, and the second from March 6, 2027 – September 5, 2027.

“We are thrilled to take a deep dive into Eric Carle’s artistic development through the artists and art movements that inspired him,” said The Carle’s Executive Director Jennifer Schantz. “We are immensely grateful to our colleagues at several of the 5 College museums for lending artworks from their collections, so our visitors can experience Eric’s work side-by-side with his artistic influences and find their own creative inspiration.”

Carle was thrilled by the “distortions and fragmentations” in the modernist works he saw, which he internalized as his “free and loose style.” When he moved back to the U.S. after World War II during the rise of Abstract Expressionism and an explosion of postwar graphic art, Carle pursued a career as a commercial artist in advertising. After the success of illustrating Bill Martin, Jr.’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (1967), he turned to creating picture books full time, with total creative freedom to embrace his fine art influences. Carle dedicated many picture books to the artists that inspired him—such as Fernand Léger, Franz Marc, and René Magritte—and his picture book art shows the influence of many artists with whom he shared philosophical and stylistic similarities.

Exhibition Highlights

Eric Carle’s Modernist Inspirations features juxtapositions of works by Carle with artists who inspired him. Among them are Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980), an artist and writer who lived in Vienna, whose early work referenced medieval stories and woodblock prints. His color lithograph Girl at the Window (Mädchen am Fenster), 1906, mimics stained-glass in Viennese churches, with thick, black outlines filled with jewel tones. In the 1970s, Carle illustrated a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, carving linoleum blocks to depict the German fairytale to make prints with a distinctly medieval feel.

Paul Klee (1879–1940) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and taught at the Bauhaus, an art movement and school that believed in integrating art and design into everyday life. A true expressionist, Klee sought to create art through pure instinct, and his paintings are glimpses into dreamlike worlds. Klee’s watercolor Äliup (Äliup), 1931, features a background of intense, repetitive brushstrokes, overlaid with dark dashes and outlined shapes that recall musical notations. Juxtaposed with Carle’s exuberant abstract illustration for Animals Animals by Laura Whipple (1989), the two pieces reflect Klee’s whimsical definition of drawing as “a line simply going for a walk”—a sentiment that deeply resonated with Carle’s sense of humor.

Fujimori Shizuo (1891–1943) was a prolific Japanese artist who developed an expressionistic style within a traditional printmaking movement, in which artists were involved in every step of the artmaking and distribution process. Similarly, as an art student in Germany, Carle studied in a printing workshop, which helped develop his keen sense of composition and appreciation for simplicity. Among Fujimori’s illustrations on view is an urban port in serene pastel colors from the One Hundred Views of Modern Tokyo series (1929), created during the massive rebuilding effort that followed a devastating 1923 earthquake. In Carle’s variant illustration for the book collection All Around Us (1986), which he envisioned as vignettes of the sky, land, sea, and underground, he first considered this extremely detailed collage of a fishing boat but ultimately settled for a more simplified steamship.

Among the artists who directly inspired Carle’s books were the French Cubist painter Fernand Léger (1881–1955), whose focus on laborers and his signature style of outlining brightly colored figures with thick, black lines can be seen in Carle’s book My Apron (1994). As a child, Carle accompanied his Uncle Adam, a plasterer, to the job site, wearing a matching apron sewn by his Aunt Elizabeth. On view are Léger’s lithograph Les Constructeurs (ca. 1950-1953), part of a series created to celebrate the modern construction worker involved in rebuilding France after World War II, and an illustration from Carle’s My Apron, with dark Léger-style outlines on his characteristic tissue paper collages.

Eric Carle’s book The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse (2011) is a direct tribute to artist Franz Marc (1880–1916), co-founder of Der Blaue Reiter and creator of an iconic 1911 painting of a blue horse, which captured the group’s use of unexpected colors and rejection of realism. Marc’s woodcut Genesis: Creation of the Animals I (1914) features animal forms that seem to spiral chaotically from the center; intended for a fully illustrated edition of The Bible, the work was left unfinished when Marc died in World War I. Carle’s endpapers for The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse has the same prismatic energy as Marc’s Genesis woodcut, as decisive brushstrokes mimic Marc’s sharp lines, in the hues of the “wrongly” colored animals featured in the book.

Anni Albers (1899–1994) also studied at the Bauhaus, but she was relegated to the textile workshop due to her gender. She created incredible weavings that exemplified the Bauhaus principles of abstraction and unity, and she later explored geometric motifs in printmaking, such as in the lithograph TR I (1969), which features layers of triangles in a pattern reminiscent of overlapping dyed threads. Carle’s admiration for visual rest through white space, clean lines, careful application of pattern, and symmetry are all Bauhaus principles, and his alternate endpapers for Hello, Red Fox (1998)—with bright red-orange colors of a fox’s fur—resonates with Albers’ work.

René Magritte (1898–1967), a leader of the Surrealist movement, developed a deadpan style that turned everyday objects into dreamlike symbols, and his photographs were often staged or manipulated. His photograph L’eminence grise (1938) features a clueless man in a bathing suit, contemplating the sand at his feet, while a book floats behind his back. At the end of his picture book career, Carle authored and illustrated The Nonsense Show (2015), dedicated to Magritte, which celebrates the imaginative potential of picture book art. An alternate illustration on view from The Nonsense Show features a silly, three-eyed clown.

Programming

Visitors can further explore Eric Carle’s Modernist Inspirations at upcoming Carle After Dark events on October 1, January 7, and April 1, with a three-part “Color Quest” that celebrates the building blocks of artistic expression. At the events, families can experiment with color, shape, and composition through interactive challenges, collaborative artmaking, and creative exploration inspired by the artists who influenced Eric Carle. Other special programming includes a gallery interactive with magnetic shapes, lines, and colors; and collage and printmaking activities in the Art Studio. Carle After Dark takes place on first Thursdays from October – June, when the Museum stays open until 7pm.

For further information, please contact: Amanda Domizio, Amanda Domizio Communications, 347-229-2877 / amanda@domiziopr.com