FOR RELEASE: IMMEDIATE            DATE: 3/8/04

CONTACT: EMILY SILVERMAN, (413) 545-0995

ERIC CARLE MUSEUM OF PICTURE BOOK ART DIRECTOR TO SPEAK AT UMASS AMHERST LIBRARY

     Amherst , Mass. – Nick Clark, Director of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art will speak on “The Wit and Wisdom of William Steig's Picturebooks” at noon on Friday, March 12, in Special Collections and Archives of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library at UMass Amherst. A reception will follow. An exhibit of William Steig's books is on display on the Main Floor of the Du Bois Library, in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum's current exhibit, “Heart and Humor: the Picture Book Art of William Steig.”

     Nick Clark is the founding Director of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. He assumed the post in January 2001. Previously, he served as the Eleanor McDonald Storza Chair of Education at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta , and as Curator of American Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk , Virginia . While at the Chrysler, he was co-curator, along with Michael Patrick Hearn and Trinkett Clark of the exhibition Myth, Magic, and Mystery: One Hundred Years of American Children's Book Illustration, which resulted in the book of the same title. His other publications include numerous articles as well as Francis W. Edmonds: American Master in the Dutch Tradition (1988), and A Marble Quarry: The James H. Ricau Collection of Sculpture at the Chrysler Museum of Art (1997).

     Clark received his B.A. cum laude from Harvard University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Delaware .

     For more information, contact Barbara Stewart at (413) 577-2634 or stew@library.umass.edu .