Illustrating the rhythm: The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art displays the visual symphony of Jerry Pinkney

Illustrator Jerry Pinkney once said, “I’d like my art to feel the way music sounds.” A new exhibition at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst explores this connection. Featuring more than 75 of Pinkney’s works, the display pairs his illustrations with the music he listened to while creating them.

The Eric Carle Museum is hosting “Soul, Sound, and Voice: The Art of Jerry Pinkney” through Sunday, Jan 3, 2027. The show was co-organized with Woodmere, an art museum in Pinkney’s hometown, Philadelphia, which put on the show in 2025.

“There is definitely a rhythm to the way that he created spreads and thought about sequencing … and there is a fluidity to his artwork that seems very akin to the experience of listening to a song that flows in and out,” said Isabel Ruiz Cano, associate curator at the museum.

Pinkney, who died in 2021 at the age of 81, illustrated more than 100 books in his lifetime. Many of his works showcased Black subjects depicted in watercolor. He frequently used blue and yellow, which is why those colors are prominent in the show’s theme.

The show is set up in three sections. In “Soul,” viewers see the works that drew from Pinkney’s spiritual beliefs, such as illustrations of psalms from “David’s Songs: His Psalms and Their Story,” authored by Colin T. Eisler. Ruiz Cano said that although Pinkney was a Christian, the museum views that section as non-denominational. Instead, she said it focuses on “how much music can express your inner feelings” and “how stories can feed your soul by highlighting people’s joy and survival.”

Several pages from “Music From Our Lord’s Holy Heaven,” a collection of illustrated spirituals, are on display as well. These pages include illustrations of a diverse choir of children singing together alongside jewel-toned angels blowing trumpets from on high. The book was a true family collaboration: Jerry Pinkney’s sons, Brian and Myles, provided some illustrations; his daughter, Troy Pinkney-Ragsdale, wrote the introduction; and his wife, Gloria Pinkney, who is a minister, compiled the collection of songs that made up the book and sang on an accompanying CD.

“You can just see how Jerry and Gloria created this family of incredibly creative people that are all still very connected and very joyous,” Ruiz Cano said.

In “Sound,” the museum celebrates the music of nature as well as music created by humans. Pinkney loved drawing animals. As Ruiz Cano put it, he was “the master of anthropomorphism” and could “really animate these animals and give them life.” Visitors can use a listening device to hear real sounds from the African savannah near illustrations while viewing Pinkney’s Caldecott Medal-winning book “The Lion & the Mouse.”

In the vibrant illustrations from “Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World,” a book about a famous all-female jazz and swing band, trombonists and trumpeters play atop colorful backgrounds overlaid with excerpts of sheet music. A dance floor sits in the gallery space nearby as a wall panel encourages guests to dance to the music they hear overhead, which is a collection of songs Pinkney used to listen to as he worked, like “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.

If visitors like the music but don’t want to dance, they also have an opportunity to express their own drawing skills at a table in the middle, where pencils and paper are provided for guests to illustrate what they hear.

The last section, “Voice,” is in part about how Pinkney used art to find his own voice, but also how he gave voice to Black stories and communities with his work. One featured book is about Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech; another is about a Black girl who is excited for the Apollo 11 moon landing, though her grandfather, a former sharecropper, doesn’t initially understand her excitement.

This section also features a local connection: Pinkney was a longtime collaborator with Julius Lester, who taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for several decades. This show has several illustrations from one of those collaborations, “The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit,” which was authored by Lester.

Pinkney’s last book was his version of “The Little Mermaid,” which features a Black mermaid named Melody who ventures to the human world. Pinkney wanted to “reinterpret the tale to be more about individual empowerment than seeking partnership and giving up your life for somebody else,” Ruiz Cano said.

“It is such a beautiful, aqueous book — you can just feel like you’re underwater,” Ruiz Cano said. “[He] couldn’t have done this without watercolors. It’s so detailed, and I love how he actually did a lot of research into different coral reefs and underwater sea creatures.”

All told, she said, she hopes museum visitors get the sense that “all of our individual beings are connected through sound, through experiences,” and that illustrators can play a role in “highlighting different voices and encouraging you to develop your own voice.”

“We can see that Jerry Pinkney’s artwork is very distinctive,” she added. “His style is immediately recognizable, and I think he wanted to encourage people to experiment the way that he did, to develop something, to develop their personality, their being — to just be unique.”

Admission to The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is $15; $10 for students, teachers and seniors; and free for members. The gallery is open Wednesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information about the museum, visit carlemuseum.org.