In 1986 the San Diego Museum of Art, under the watchful eye of Ted himself, featured a retrospective dedicated to his life and work. Several of his paintings and early sketches were included in the mix. The show was well-received by the public and traveled to many locations throughout the United States. The show was cataloged and put into book format as Dr. Seuss from Then to Now: A Catalogue of the Retrospective Exhibition. The book is no longer in print, but it offers a breathtaking array of 60 years of Ted’s work. While the show was a hit among patrons, Ted wasn’t satisfied that his paintings and position as a true artist were recognized. (Morgan, p. 267).

Other Media
In 1966, Ted received a call from his old friend Chuck Jones, now a successful animator. Jones convinced Ted to adapt How the Grinch Stole Christmas! for television. It was a painstaking task, as Jones used the full-animation technique that had been popular at Disney. The idea behind full animation is that one could follow the story, with or without the benefit of narration. With full animation, a half-hour television program would require approximately 25,000 drawings—over 12 times as many drawings as most animations of equal length.
The length of the story, the color of the Grinch, and the development of a script that did not end on a trite or overly religious note also had to be addressed.
Again, Ted was always very particular about colors, and it took some convincing by Jones for Ted to concede to paint the Grinch green with evil red eyes. The songs were a collaborative effort between Ted and composer Albert Hague. To resolve Ted’s concern that the story end in a way that was not trite or overly religious, the script called for a star to rise to the heavens (rather than drop from the sky) to emphasize the power of the heart.
At last, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! aired in time for the 1966 holiday season and it still ranks high in viewer ratings 25 years later. In fact, nearly 30 of Ted’s Dr. Seuss books have been adapted for television or video.

Posthumous Works/Tribute Works
Six books were produced posthumously, all based on Dr. Seuss materials, with one exception: My Many Colored Days was written by Ted himself in 1973, but the text was not discovered until after his death. Many of these posthumous books, such as Daisy-Head Mayzie and My Many Colored Days, were made into animated specials or are available on video.
In June 2002, the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum (Springfield, MA) has scheduled an exhibition that will coincide with the unveiling of the National Seuss Memorial. Under the direction of the show’s curator, Charles Cohen, countless pieces from Cohen’s personal collection will be featured, including a rare vase from Ted’s days as a mail-order sculptor and a beer tray that he had designed for the Narragansett Brewery in Rhode Island. “So much of what he did with his children’s books is interrelated to his earlier work in advertising and illustration,” Cohen explains, “I want to educate folks about that . . . and that he began the teaching of tolerance to generations of kids—that ‘a person’s a person, no matter how small’—to me, he orchestrated real change early on. He didn’t start out that way, he was a real product of his times. In the ‘20s and ‘30s, when people just made jokes about race, etc., he was a part of that—in his early cartoons, [this is apparent].” Cohen adds, “Another thing I’m hoping to do with this exhibit is to show the change—show his conscience being raised, to the point where he became the proponent for equality.”
The exhibition will run through mid-January 2003.

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