Academy founder Aaron Stern and Ernest’s granddaughter Julie Seton at the opening reception
The passage of time brings change to the details of life. But overarching themes may change very little. One-hundred and twenty-four years ago Ernest Thompson Seton attended the last hours in the life of a wolf. Referred to in his journal as specimen #677, the wolf returned to literary life as “Lobo” ten months later. The wolf’s biography, “The King of Currumpaw” become “Lobo, The King of Currumpaw” in 1898, four years after his first appearance. The story anchored a short story collection in Wild Animals I Have Known. It was, in its way, the first Lobo graphic novel.
Seton illustrated the Lobo story (depending upon the edition) with more than twenty drawings. He referred to Lobo several times in later books and often in his lectures. Lobo has now appeared yet again in a newly illustrated version the story. The Academy for the Love of Learning has just released a graphic novel, Lobo, The King of Currumpaw, The World’s Greatest Wolf Story. Forty-eight artists created fifty-five illustrations for the latest re-telling of the story.
A new art exhibition
The original art premiered on Sunday, August 12 at the Academy’s Seton Gallery. The opening reception attracted an attendance of over 150 (including more than twenty of the artists). This also marked the debut of the graphic novel.
Each artist was given one section of text from the story to illustrate on a 20 x 15” board. Their only instruction was to create an original work of art in reaction to the text. They used whatever medium they wished—painting, drawing, prints, and collage. The artists worked independently from one another.
The visual result is remarkably evocative of the landscape and challenges faced by Lobo, of the violence and loyalty of wolf life, and of the role Seton himself played in this drama. There were as many different artistic approaches as there were artists. Lobo and his story continue to inspire us in the Twenty-first Century, much as he did in the Nineteenth.
Wolves still in trouble
And yet, the tragic theme of wolf killing in that earlier century continues to repeat itself in our own time. The two wolf subspecies living in northeastern New Mexico where the Lobo story was set are long extinct. Today, the remaining subspecies, the Mexican Gray Wolf, is similarly beleaguered.
The names change. The stories remain much the same.