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On view February 6–May 2026

When we create fairy tales, we imagine new worlds where everyday problems find magical solutions.ÌýÌýTheir characters and stories encourage us to look with fresh eyes at our relationships with the natural world and with one another.ÌýFilled with optimism, fairy tales remind us that change and transformation can help us overcome obstacles and find hope, resilience, and happy endings.

Artists share this spirit of wonder. They create worlds that offer new ways of interpreting human experience, confronting our understanding of reality with imagery that can be fantastic, outlandish or even unsettling. Like fairy tale narratives, their work blends realms, with hybrid creatures, mysterious thresholds and liminal spaces, inviting us to imagine otherwise. Their artworks envision inversions and reversals of cultural and social norms, often aided by power derived from magic and otherworldly sources.

The artworks, books, and maps in this exhibition bring to life the stories and themes of fairy tales, themes fairy tales share with myths and saints’ legends.Ìý Maps of Fairy Land trace pathways and meandering routes through landscapes described in these stories. Open volumes reveal illustrations that interpret fairytale settings and scenes, while other art works feature the magical beings that are the typical characters of fairy tales—animal, human and unearthly.

This exhibition was coordinated with concurrent exhibitions at the ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä Museum of Natural History and Norlin Library. Special thanks to Professor Suzanne Magnanini and Rebecca Davis for curatorial content, and to the exhibition team: Dulce Aldama, Sean Babbs, Rebecca Davis, Suzanne Magnanini, Kathy Noonan, Hope Saska and Nancy Stevens. ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä Art Museum staff contributed to the success of this show including, Pedro Caceres, Elizabeth van der Marck-Gregg, Stephen Martonis, Maggie Mazzullo, Hope Saska, and our team of Museum Attendants.