On Wednesday Older Brother, Younger Brother and I had a wonderful day out when we went up to Newcastle for the opening of Seven Stories‘ new exhibition, From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Mog & Pink Rabbit: A Judith Kerr Retrospective, which now runs until May 2010 – and if you are fortunate to be within a few hundred miles, don’t miss it – it is wonderful!
In keeping with Seven Stories’ aims to inspire and spark the imagination, the walk-through exhibition has something to suit everyone – from hands-on activities and props to fascinating artefacts and displays: and a whole lifetime’s original artwork and manuscripts. For, despite escaping Nazi Germany at very short notice and moving several times across Europe before finally settling in England, Judith’s mother kept many of her daughter’s early paintings and story-writing. 
As Kate Edwards, Seven Stories’ Chief Executive, pointed out, it is particularly special to have “a whole life-time of drawing and story-telling encapsulated in one wonderful archive” and through that archive and now also through this exhibition, “we start to experience Judith’s life through her eyes”: as a child, a refugee, a wife, a mother, an artist, and a wonderful storyteller. “She’s also very funny: she moves us but she also makes us laugh, which is a wonderful, wonderful gift to give to children.”
That humor, as well as the upheaval of Judith’s early years, is beautifully conveyed in the exhibition. My two were immediately captivated by the tiger paw-prints leading the way upstairs in suitably long strides; and younger brother threw himself through the enormous cat-flap between sections in the exhibition, gleefully pointing out how the tiger tracks on one side had become Mog’s on the other. There are also a couple of fabulous surprises but I won’t give them away!
It was a privilege to hear Judith Kerr speak about her now classic The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog stories, as well as her books for older children, based on her childhood as a refugee from Nazi Germany, growing up in wartime London and going to art college: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, Bombs on Aunt Dainty and A Small Person Far Away. And certainly, for Older Brother, whose school topic this term is the Second World War, it was especially emotive to listen to someone whose life had been so drastically and directly affected by Hitler – and indeed to come face to face with the grown up who was Anna in When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.
We were shown a delightful and moving film, also part of the exhibition, made by a group of primary school-children who had worked with Seven Stories and Judith herself as a Their Past Your Future project – read about it here. It had been particularly poignant for the class because some of the children were refugees themselves. Some of the children were present and it was evident that their affection for Judith and enjoyment of her work went way beyond the project, which had concluded with the children sending her a present of a pink, furry rabbit. They still had plenty of questions for her and one boy regaled her with the antics of his cat along the lines of Mog’s Bad Thing – which, when asked, Judith asserted to be one of her favorites: “ I like the one that’s rude – Mog’s Bad Thing!”
So, a few snippets we learned:
Judith regrets the passive way her father, Alfred Kerr, a well-known critic and journalist, is portrayed in her trilogy: she only found out about all the work he had done during the war on anti-Nazi propaganda long after she’d written the books.
Alfred Kerr’s books were among the first to be branded “un-German” and burned by the Nazis.
As a child, Judith often made and illustrated stories as presents for her family because she didn’t have any money to buy them (and some of them are in the exhibition).
Judith worked as a textile designer in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s and some of her designs are incorporated into the exhibition.
You can read a full biography of Judith here; a delightful encounter with her here and visit her in her studio here.
And finally, a question:
If you had only 20 minutes to pack, what would you take?
