All the loves in Schulz’s Peanuts strips are unrequited. His long-running story of Charlie Brown’s admiration for the Little Red-Haired Girl a reflection of his own rejection of a marriage proposal to the real-life Little Red-Haired Girl Donna Mae Johnson. For Schulz the idea that the greatest happiness was to be found in the simple sense of connection to others, in the strip itself the experience of happiness was a much more complex and elusive thing.
Enjoy an exclusive after hours view of the Good Grief, Charlie Brown! exhibition, experiencing each character as a catalyst for feelings beyond their control. Meet your match through online and offline collaborations with artist led activity from resident Somerset House Studios Artist Libby Heaney and workshops with Wilfrid Wood, previously ‘headbuilder’ for satirical TV program Spitting Image.
Tickets include exhibition entry, complimentary drink, and the full access to late night activities subject to availability:
Love Unrequited
Sign up to a time slot on arrival
Exhibition tours will run throughout the evening revealing the underlying philosophical side of Peanuts and creator Schulz. Hear more of the roles and relationship behind each character and the inside scoop on who’s heartthrob is who’s.
Love Online
Drop-in to join in
Join resident Somerset House Studios Artist Libby Heaney and her Peanuts Chatterbots to explore the language of love. Interact with i-pad based conversation streams to chat up your favourite character from the comic strips and see what love notes they leave you in return.
About Libby Heaney:
Libby Heaney is an artist and lecturer at the Royal College of Art. With a background in quantum computing, Libby’s practice is concerned with the impacts of new technologies with a focus on participation, language and (un)storytelling. Libby has exhibited in the UK and internationally including at the V&A, Tate Modern and Ars Electronica.
Love Offline
Sign up to a time slot on arrival
Enjoy face to face fun at a drawing workshops with Wilfrid Wood. Whether you’ve arrived solo, with friends, lovers or partners, Wilfrid will be sprucing up your skills whilst offering up a moment or two to meet your match.
About Wilfrid Wood:
After dumping a career in graphics, Wilfrid plunged into prop making at cult classic British television show, Spitting Image. Here he learnt his trade as an ‘apprentice headbuilder’, starting in the Eyeballs and Blinks department and moving on to Dogs and Sheep.
25 years later he is now a portrait artist. His subjects are famous people, invented characters, strangers and friends. He spends hours studying characters in the supermarket, on the bus and in celebrity magazines. Wilfrid is commissioned to make both sculpted and drawn portraits, regularly drawing people from life in his Hackney studio.
Currently he is engaged in a series of pastel portraits, mainly of curious individuals who have made contact through Instagram and volunteered their time.