EXHIBITION
As a boy, I never had much regard for the story books written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter in the first decades of the 20th century.
Her watercolours were treacly and her tales too simple-minded and rustic. I lived in a world of plastic and plenitude; What use did I have for wayward rabbits, riddling squirrels and foppish frogs? I preferred the brighter and bolder books of Doctor Seuss, whose humour was sharper to my ear, satirising the fragility, chaos and absurdity just under the surface of daily life.
I have long since changed my mind.
A smart and compelling exhibition, Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature, at New York’s Morgan Library, paints her as a multidimensional talent. It surveys
