Elephant House: Photographs of Edward Gorey's House

by Kevin McDermott

Book Overview

An intimate photographic tour of Edward Gorey's strange and wonderful house. Fresh biographical insights and warm reminiscences by a longtime Gorey confidant, Kevin McDermott. Includes heretofore... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764924958
• ISBN13: 9780764924958
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: Pomegranate Communications
• Length: 1 Pages
• Weight: 2.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 11.4" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Inside Edward Gorey's house...

If you are an Ogdred Weary fan...this is a truly wonderful book. Photographs of the exterior (peeling paint and kind of saggy porch) and the interior rooms of the house on Cape Cod in Gorey lived and worked, along with his cats and figbashes, piles of thousands of books, assorted rocks and oddish things, and the expected miriad of curiosities. Alas, or delightfully...just the environment one would expect of the eccentric Edward. A cabinet of curiosities...a delight!

At Home With Edward Gorey

Kevin McDermott's Elephant House is an impressive new photography book. The photographs, taken only days after Edward Gorey's death, afford us an intimate portrait of the man as he lived. The book contains insightful photographs that capture the fine details of the way Edward lived and worked in his own space. Gorey clearly had a fascination with light and texture. He scattered a massive array of objects all about his home with a nearly curatorial eye. McDermott's well composed photos not only capture this aspect of Gorey but illustrate a common thread between these two artists: texture. One photograph depicts groups of small stones as they congregate idly on the rough wood of the porch. The cityscape of salt and pepper shakers and a plate of gourd-like, spherical shapes are beautiful studies in the texture and form of ordinary objects abstracted from their normal contexts, while many others are still lives made of the house's windows and the eclectically arranged objects in front of them. The blue bottles in a few images glow like stained glass as the washed-out light of a cloudy day streams in through them. What makes many of the color images so interesting is the spare, nearly monochromatic palette of colors in the rooms which are offset by only the blue luminosity of bottles or the green leaves of spring showing in the background. These are beautiful photographs independent of their connection to Edward Gorey, but serve also to enhance our understanding of him. The text is an entertaining and candid glimpse of Gorey as a friend knew him, and provides a nicely guided tour through each room. This book is handsomely crafted and thoughtfully designed, and I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in photography or Edward Gorey.

Elephant House or the home of Edward Gorey

Edward Gorey was a mysterious personage. His works often leave one thinking "what next?". Elephant House by Kevin McDermott helps relieve much of this worry. Mr. McDermott has captured through his photographs and text what it was like to spend time with the elusive Mr. Gorey. This is a personal and moving tribute to a friend that never feels intrusive, but rather illuminates Mr. Gorey and the daily world he invented and inhabited. For those of us who have made Mr. Gorey a part of our own daily lives, Elephant House lets us spend some quality time with the man through his surroundings. A gem and a gift.

Thoughts from a friend

For Edward Gorey fans who think they know a lot about the world-famous author and artist, this remarkable new book of photographs and text about Gorey's residence on Cape Cod will come as a suprise. Photographer (and friend of Gorey) Kevin McDermott was granted permission to photograph the inside of the Gorey house which contained massive collections of art, books, rare objects and found treasures from flea markets, antique shops and yard sales. (The hunt for most of these objects was a Gorey favorite pastime). The fascinating part of this photographic adventure is in seeing how Gorey carefully arranged objects among his 25,ooo books and thousands of musical recordings. This unique experience was lost forever when the contents of the house were were sorted and dispersed after the photographs were taken. So, here is your chance to visit Gorey's home as he personally arranged it. There is a fine forward by Pulitzer Prize writer John Updike who knew Gorey when they were both students at Harvard. McDermott's text is also filled with a generous number of his amusing and interesting anecdotes about Gorey, plus some choice ones gathered from friends and relatives. ELEPHANT HOUSE is a must for anyone who enjoys Gorey's unique work.

Among Gorey's Favorite Things

As I prepare to walk up to the porch of Edward Gorey's home in Kevin McDermott's book Elephant House: or, the Home of Edward Gorey, I am prepared to be surprised. Images flash through memory - bizarre inert characters from Embley and Yewbert to the flamboyant Figbash. I expect to be greeted by Doubtful Guest dolls lurking behind dank Victorian sofas and lots of black umbrellas. I hold my breath.Instead, I find stones. Lots of them, clustered along the stairs to the left. A line-up of antique irons marches around the corner of the house. And books. Thousands of books are piled high among balusters and finials - architectural embellishments long separated from their structures gracefully and imposingly placed upon windowsills and cabinets. Clusters of nearly every imaginable sort of bits used in everyday life are tenderly collected and assembled. Groups of texture and form - standing wooden kitchen utensils and bocce balls mixed with perfectly rounded beach stones. Everything is older, well used and would have normally been discarded after a long and useful life. A huddled gathering of pewter salt and pepper shakers remain steadfast upon a tray.As I gaze through the entrance room, through the living room and the kitchen, I find the author's black and white photographs eerie, haunting. Kevin McDermott's pages takes me from room to room, filling in the cluttered corners with anecdotes and reminisces of Gorey's life here, as one who knew him closely could only do. Not as a remote docent at the Van Gogh exhibit reciting textbook fare, but as a friend relating peculiarities about a companion.The journey of Gorey's Elephant House is mostly black and white, with splashes of color photographs accenting the pages with surprising bursts of pigment. A cluster of bright blue glass bottles in a well lit window gives as much insight into Gorey's playful inventiveness as any four-page interview has attempted. I do find Figbash and the Doubtful Guest - they are not central but instead ancillary to a greater collection of flotsam and jetsam, worn stuffed animals and books, music and artwork, that filled Gorey's mind. Well, one theme appears central - books. The Elephant House was bloated with 25 thousand of them. I laughed out loud when I reached the library, as it looked to be only an extension to every other room. I have several friends whose homes are similarly endowed, so I understand its pleasure.As far as the title goes - Elephant House - I happily find no token ceramic Asian elephant end tables, but rather an ancient commode with an abstract nod to a pachyderm. A chunk of driftwood in the kitchen is very elephant-like. Speculation falls on the aging scaly gray shingles on the house's exterior (Gorey could have easily called it the Frog House, however, for his love of frogs appears everywhere.) A sobering image of modern plastic pill bottles, artfully placed on a window sill, reminds me of Gorey's frailty in the later years and I am again saddened at our loss