World Premiere at Cape Ann Historical Museum

Virginia Lee Burton: A Sense of Place

A film by Christine Lundberg and Rawn Fulton

Music composed and performed by Steven Schoenberg

The Cape Ann Historical Museum is pleased to present the world premiere of a 1-hour documentary film that explores the life and art of Virginia Lee Burton who lived and worked on Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Screenings will be held on Saturday, November 24 at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. in the Folly Cove Auditorium. These programs are free and open to the public, but reservations are required. Please call the Museum for reservations at (978) 283-0455.

Virginia Lee Burton is recognized as one of the most significant children’s book author-illustrators of the 20th century. Her now classic books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939) and the Caldecott Award-winning The Little House (1942), are still in print and are currently embraced by a third generation of early readers. Approximately 4 million books have been sold worldwide. Burton’s dynamic illustrations and innovative use of color, space, typeface and design were a dramatic departure from the European picture books that were prevalent in the 20th century.

In 1941, Burton established the Folly Cove Designers, a textile collective on Cape Ann. The work of the Folly Cove Designers was included in major arts and crafts exhibitions in the 1940s and 1950s. Based upon Burton’s theories of design, these textiles were heralded as setting a new direction in American design and were recognized nationally and internationally. The design collective disbanded a year after Burton’s death in 1968, but its legacy is very much alive. The Museum houses a large collection of Folly Cove Designers fabrics, clothing, wallpaper, and artifacts. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Peabody Essex Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have Folly Cove Designers fabrics in their textile collections.

Virginia Lee Burton: A Sense of Place will be aired by WGBH on Channel 44 on Sunday, December 30 at 7:00 p.m.

Christine Lundberg has been active in educational and cultural arts media for over twenty years. Prior to founding Red Dory Productions, LLC in 2002, she was Corporate Vice-President of Public Media Incorporated, a worldwide multimedia distribution company based in Chicago, Illinois.