Bright Serpent, 2022
Carson Ellis | Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture
Carson Ellis will deliver the 2025 Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Visiting Artist Lecture as part of the Sam Fox School’s Public Lecture Series at WashU.
Ellis is author and illustrator of the bestselling picture books “Home” (2015) and “Du Iz Tak?” (2017). A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and many others, Ellis has illustrated books by Trenton Lee Stewart, Lemony Snicket and by her husband, Colin Meloy. She also serves as illustrator-in-residence for Meloy’s band, The Decemberists.
About Carson Ellis
Carson Ellis is the author and illustrator of the bestselling picture books Home and Du Iz Tak? (a Caldecott Honor book and the recipient of an E.B. White Read Aloud Award). She has illustrated a number of books for kids including The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, The Composer Is Dead by Lemony Snicket, and The Wildwood Chronicles by her husband, Colin Meloy. Carson has been awarded silver medals by the Society of Illustrators for her work on Wildwood Imperium and on Dillweed’s Revenge by Florence Parry Heide. She’s the illustrator-in-residence for Colin’s band The Decemberists, and received Grammy nominations in 2016 and 2018 for album art design. She works occasionally as an editorial illustrator for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, and other publications. She also exhibits paintings and is represented by Nationale in Portland.
Journaling, one week in January
album cover design for The Decemberists, “As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again,” 2024
illustration in “The Shortest Day” by Susan Cooper, 2019
illustration for Rumpelstiltskin retold by Mac Barnett
Illimat, board game card design
Recording
More Upcoming Lectures
Apr 15 at 5:30pm • Museum Lobby
Being and Becoming in Contemporary Chinese Art
This talk by Peggy Wang, associate professor of art history and Asian studies at Bowdoin College, addresses the conflicting pressures that artists in China confronted during the 1990s and early 2000s, including rapid urbanization and cultural globalization. Even as they navigated political constraints and deficits in resources, contemporary artists enacted productive strategies for making and exhibiting their art. This lecture foregrounds artists’ assertions of being and becoming, both as critical tactics for configuring identity and generative topics unto themselves. Wang will particularly examine how artists studied the vibrant dynamics of change through temporal, historical, and material dimensions in their art.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China, on view at the Kemper Art Museum from February 27 to July 27, 2026.
Part of the Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series