MEMPHIS, TN.- The Dixon Gallery & Gardens in Memphis presents From Houdini to Hugo: The Art of Brian Selznick, an exhibition of original artwork by the Caldecott award-winning, New York Times best-selling children’s author and illustrator, Brian Selznick.

This presentation at the Dixon coincides with the release of Brian Selznick’s new book, Wonderstruck, and the November 2011 release of a major motion picture, Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese and based on Selznick’s 2007 book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

Combining intricately rendered drawings, historical reference, and film, Brian Selznick creates powerful imagery through the illustrative form of the children’s picture book. From Houdini to Hugo presents 100 original drawings and paintings from Selznick’s 17 books, among them: The Houdini Box, Barnyard Prayers, Walt Whitman: Words for America, The Doll People, Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, Our House, When Marian Sang, The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, and Frindle.

Brian Selznick’s world is comprised of magical narratives and characters as diverse as the great Houdini, wordsmith Walt Whitman, celebrated singer Marian Anderson, and Hugo Cabret — an orphan who lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station.

Brian Selznick attended the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University. After graduating, he worked at Eeyore's Books for Children, in Manhattan, where his contacts included book editors, picture book artists, authors, and a knowledgeable staff. He wrote and illustrated his first book while working at the store. He received a 2002 Caldecott Honor and was awarded the 2008 Caldecott Medal for his innovative, cinematic The Invention of Hugo Cabret, a 526-page book told in words and pictures — nearly 300 pages of pictures! —that he both authored and illustrated.

Also at at the Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Victorian Visionary: The Art of Elliot Daingerfield opened this past weekend. Influenced by his friend and fellow artist George Inness, North Carolina native Elliott Daingerfield (1859 – 1932) always sought to express a deeper spirituality in his art. In a career that spanned more than fifty years, Daingerfield produced paintings, murals, and drawings with religious and allegorical overtones, in addition to a remarkable series of landscapes both of his native North Carolina and of the majestic Grand Canyon area. Victorian Visionary examines all of these aspects of this introspective American artist’s oeuvre.

Melissa Dunn: Looking for One Thing, Finding Another
In her wonderfully abstract canvases, native Memphian Melissa Dunn gathers inspiration from a multitude of sources, including science, nature, architecture, fashion, film and graphic design. She interprets these into visually colorful and stunning abstract forms that energize the surface of her paintings as she creates a visual narrative of her experience.

The Dixon presents an exhibition of new work by Memphis artist Melissa Dunn, Looking for One Thing, Finding Another. Dunn’s process-oriented painting and drawing in the past year culminates in this group of 18 pieces including both painting and works on paper. These works show the artist juxtaposing the deliberate mark with expressive, painterly color-fields, producing a fascinating and aesthetically pleasing study of the traditions of abstract painting.

A native Memphian and University of Memphis graduate, Dunn has been in variety of local, regional and national exhibitions. In 2009 she was selected to participate in the show Tennessee Abstract Painting at the Cheekwood Museum in Nashville as well as the 52nd Annual Delta Exhibit at the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock.