Carter Goodrich Exhibition

A brilliant character designer, Carter Goodrich has collaborated with major animation studios – DreamWorks, Pixar, Illumination – on iconic movies, such as Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille, Coco and Despicable Me. He has also distinguished himself as an illustrator and has notably drawn around 20 several covers for The New Yorker.

The exhibition reveals nearly 150 illustrations – graphite drawings and watercolors – exploring the artist's creative and graphic genius, and his caustic humor.

For the very first time, it includes a series of portraits from what is undoubtedly his most ambitious personal project: a feature-length animated movie advocating against the right to bear arms in the United States, on which he has been working for 10 years. These drawings embody the beginnings of an American society fascinated by weapons. Carter Goodrich's genius is expressed in the attitudes and morphologies of his characters, with a style that is both expressive and refined. These striking portraits have been collected in the book Western! for the occasion, with a preface by Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes.

The exhibition also showcases some of his beautiful animation artwork, the result of decades of creativity. An entire section is dedicated to a gallery of characters the artist considers his finest work, which are characters discarded by studios, but carefully preserved in his portfolio. These unpublished drawings are now brought together in the exhibition and in the book Casting Call, testifying to the diversity and singularity of his graphic universe.