‘Good Grief, Charlie Brown!’ Exhibition

We recently visited Somerset House for the Private view of one of their latest Exhibitions ‘GOOD GRIEF, CHARLIE BROWN!’. The exhibition takes a close look at the famous artist Charles M. Shultz and his comic book creation Peanuts.

The first part of the exhibition takes a look at Charles’ younger life, and shows the preliminary work that led up to the creation of Peanuts. This felt very intimate and was interesting to see how many aspects of his childhood influenced the subject matter of his work later on in life. For comic book fanatics details about the sort of pen he used, as well as a look into how he uses speech in his work are also present.

The Exhibition is covered in amazing Peanuts objects that have been made over the years. Most of them are toys and little interesting collectables with a beautiful stand out typewriter towards the end of the exhibition.

The upstairs wing of the exhibition shows a great range of curated works by contemporary Artists based on Peanuts, some of which were created solely for the exhibition. Stand out pieces include some large painting (left) by Artist Mark Drew and a Snoopy banner (right) by Des Hughes. This long room is also full to the brim with more original Peanuts comics, tables of books to read, and a side room reveals a big cinema room to watch some cartoons and more visual works by other artists.

The final part of the exhibition includes a lovely drawing station that encourages people to create their own Peanuts comics by drawing on a light box. Although light hearted Peanuts often touches upon quite serious topics, and so  the room also includes a Psychiatrist stations where patients can come to ask questions about art and life!

It all concludes with a great shop full to the brim with Peanuts Merchandise. There are dozens of books, games, clothes, prints and way more. The exhibition runs until March 2019 and is an absolute must for any comic book fan, and for any who aren’t you surely will be by the end of it.

Tickets and more information can be found here