The Exhibition at La Maison d'Ailleurs

The long awaited Mervyn Peake exhibition opened at 6pm on 3rd October at La Maison d'Ailleurs at Yverdon-les-Bains in Switzerland. The main door to the museum opened on the dot, and there in the newly designed foyer, was a great display of books about and by the author and illustrator, and a large number of copies of L'Hebdo, Switzerland's answer to Newsweek. In a comprehensive three page colour article published that day, the show was eloquently reviewed, while contributions from writers and others gave their enthusiastic views of the exhibition.

Also available in the foyer were copies of the exceptionally elegant catalogue; a finely illustrated book would better describe the handsome silver grey volume, while prints of some of the 250 illustrations on display in the show were also for sale.

The whole organisation was the model of quiet efficiency as the visitor began by walking down the first of many white painted corridors, where the tastefully mounted and framed drawings were placed at just the right height for considered viewing. One lovely idea which offers the visitor information about the work about to be seen, is an open 'book' which spreads a narrow shadow to either side.