Good Grief, Charlie Brown!: The Art of Charles Schulz: "At the Heart of Schulz's Great Connection with the World Was His Humanity." (Museum Today)

Egan, Richard, Rawson, Kimberly, USA TODAY

"I'LL NEVER BE Andrew Wyeth" the late Charles M. Schulz often lamented, referring to the famed American artist. This, from the man whose comic strip "Peanuts," over the course of its 50-year lifetime, grew into the most-successful and beloved strip of all time, one that would see publication in 2,600 newspapers with 355,000,000 readers in 75 countries. The strip and its characters were the inspiration for dozens of television specials, two plays, a symphonic concerto, many books, and countless licensed products. Peanuts products became a $1,000,000,000-a-year worldwide industry for United Features, and Schulz became the highest-paid, most-widely read cartoonist ever. Yet, even with the adoration of an eternally grateful public, he would rarely allow a self-congratulatory moment. In 1997, Schulz noted that comics illustration is "a low art form. We don't hang in art galleries. We're not good enough."

The world's artistic perspective isn't quite as narrow as Schulz had feared. An insightful new exhibition of his work is on view at a museum built around the work of a similarly beloved 20th-century illustrator and American icon. The Norman Rockwell Museum--where for over 30 …

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Publication information: Article title: Good Grief, Charlie Brown!: The Art of Charles Schulz: "At the Heart of Schulz's Great Connection with the World Was His Humanity." (Museum Today). Contributors: Egan, Richard - Author, Rawson, Kimberly - Author. Magazine title: USA TODAY. Volume: 130. Issue: 2680 Publication date: January 2002. Page number: 46+. © 2009 Society for the Advancement of Education. COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group.

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