Edward Gorey was a very popular illustrator known for his distinctive pen and ink work and quirky dark topics, all with a sense of humor. Perhaps you remember the animated pen and ink style animated opening to PBS’s “Mystery” back in the day? He was also known for having a bunch of cats, and for drawing lots of them in his artwork and books. Gorey passed in 1999. We visited the Edward Gorey museum last week out on the Cape in Port Yarmouth. The museum is basically his old house without much modification from how he left it. His famous fur coat is on display. Even the kitchen is as he left it when he died.
But this post is about a cat.
The upstairs where his studio was located, which I really wanted to see, was not open to the public. But as we passed the stairwell to the upstairs, this is what we saw (see below). Which, of course, is exactly what one would expect to see in Edward Gorey’s house. It is the house caretaker’s cat obviously. But this cat knows the roll he’s playing.
I added a little Gorey drawing of a cat looking through a window that was very oddly similar to the photo I took…of a cat looking through a window. I can’t imagine Gorey would have had it any other way!
Visit Edward Gorey House website to see his work and find out museum hours/exhibition schedule. It’s absolutely worth a trip if you are in the western area of Cape Code.
And if you can’t make it to the Cape, check out Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, which Gorey illustrated, to get your pen and ink cat fix.
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