Dr. Seuss’ touring hat collection is headed to Beverly Hills
An eclectic collection of headgear once owned by Dr. Seuss has been traveling the country for the better part of two years -- and it’s scheduled to stop at a Beverly Hills art gallery next month.
The touring “Hats Off to Dr. Seuss!” exhibition kicked off at the New York Public Library in early 2013 as part of a yearlong celebration to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Theodor Seuss Geisel’s second book, “The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins.” It includes some of the crazy lids the good doctor (who died in 1991) had amassed as part of an extensive personal hat collection.
(On a side note, this reporter saw the exhibition on in New York in February 2013, and, prompted to pay homage to Dr. Seuss, embarked on a project to wear 500 different hats over 500 days. The effort is chronicled here.)
The converted steamer trunk of hats has made its way to Southern California in the past, with 2013 stops in La Jolla and San Diego (it has recently returned to the latter locale for a two-month, two-venue stand before heading north), but the upcoming run at EC Gallery in Beverly Hills will mark its first stop in Los Angeles County.
There are black-and-white convict caps, a teeny tiny sombrero, a black topper, Chinese caps, white fuzzy marching band busbys, fierce-looking pickelhaubes (the spiked helmets once favored by the Prussian military), embroidered naval caps and all manner of fancy, floppy felt chapeaus festooned with colorful Seussian-appropriate plumage. There’s even a towering stovepipe top hat with three wide horizontal bands of red interspersed with two of white like the one the Cat in the Hat wore and a Cubbins-appropriate red felt cap with a sloping crown and single white feather.
The EC Gallery, 229 S. Beverly Drive, will host the hat exhibit -- along with purchasable prints and sculpture from the “Art of Dr. Seuss” collection -- April 24 through May 10, with a special meet-the-curator event scheduled for April 25 from noon to 6 p.m.
The full schedule of the touring hat exhibit can be found at www.drseussart.com/hatsoff.
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