No Fooling! SFPL's Annual Wit & Humor Exhibition

Consider life's characters: they are the unusual or seriously odd people we meet on the streets, at work, at play, at a sidewalk café. Here at the public library characters may fill our buildings, but they also inhabit the pages of our books. The Schmulowitz Collection of Wit & Humor (SCOWAH) celebrates a wide variety of characters: in addition to the humorists and artists who have made their presence known over the years, another character emerges. This is the eccentric, whose brief splash shocks the world, who slips back into obscurity just as suddenly; lingering in a half-life of memory. If not for the valiant efforts of inquisitive writers and scholars who make it their business to lift their subjects out of hiding, we might never know some of the extraordinary people we are about to meet.

The exhibition peeks into the sometime silly, often curious, but mostly wonderful world of a few of our favorites: chief humbug P.T. Barnum; literary detective Paul Collins; queen of comedians Phyllis Diller; macabre storyteller Edward Gorey; sleight of hand artist and scholar of the eccentric, Ricky Jay; exuberant colorist Maira Kalman; the great folklorist Gershon Legman; Renaissance jokester Poggio Bracciolini; le Petomane Joseph Pujol; and Kay Thompson, Eloise’s best friend.

The Objects of Our Affection opens today and continues through May 31. In the Skylight Gallery, Sixth Floor, Main Library.

Related display and programs:

I Beg to Differ: Discerning Characters and Distinctive Points of View. A book cover display from the General Collections & Humanities Center. Third floor wall case, April 1-May 31.


On Thursday, April 7, the Library presents a short documentary followed by an author talk with Sam Irvin, who will discuss his new book, Kay Thompson: From Funny Face to Eloise. In the Latino-Hispanic Community Meeting Room, Main Library, 6 p.m.


For the month of April the Library presents Thursdays at Noon: Marching to the Beat of Their Own Drummers. Large screen videos will be shown in the Koret Auditorium, Main Library: The Man Who Came to Dinner (April 7), The World According to Garp (April 14), True Stories (April 21), and Grey Gardens (April 28).

All programs at the Library are Free.

For more information, please call (415) 557-4277.