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Oct. 26, 2002 - Jan. 12, 2003 The Berenstain Bears Celebrate: the Art of Stan and Jan Berenstain was the first museum retrospective of the careers of Stan and Jan Berenstain, Bucks County residents whose much-loved series about the adventures of a family of bears has made them the most successful author/illustrators in publishing history. The exhibition, sponsored by Merrill Lynch, opened at the Michener Art Museum on October 26, 2002 and ran through January 12, 2003. In addition to the lives and careers of the Berenstains, this exhibition documented the history of magazine and book illustration over the last seven decades. The exhibition examined their influences, their iconography and their techniques -- from their earliest drawings to their most recent works -- as well as their cultural impact over the last sixty years. As a special feature for young visitors, the show included several interactive displays that included an "inside outside upside down" box for kids to explore, a floorboard game based on the "First Time Books" series, a special area for drawing your own gag cartoon and an audio feature that let visitors read a Berenstain Bear story aloud with the authors. The exhibition was organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and its opening at the Michener Art Museum coincided with the publication of Down A Sunny Dirt Road: An Autobiography by Stan and Jan Berenstain by Random House. The Berenstain Bears Celebrate was the first exhibition to have complete access to the Berenstains' rich archive of material. Visitors had the opportunity to trace these popular artists' evolution by viewing a selection of their work, including original drawings and paintings, sketchbooks, and ephemera, much of which had never been exhibited before. The exhibition assembled works from every part of their career including representative pieces from 40 years of the award-winning Berenstain Bears series.
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