AOIF Brings Charlotte’s Web Artwork Into Classrooms

The Arts of Imagination Foundation is opening a new chapter in arts education by bringing Garth Williams’ original cover artwork for Charlotte’s Web into school classrooms—connecting young students directly with a treasured piece of American literary and artistic history.

Garth Williams, the legendary illustrator whose work shaped childhood reading for generations, created the iconic cover art for E. B. White’s beloved Charlotte’s Web. In 2024, The Arts of Imagination Foundation acquired the original artwork through a successful fundraising campaign, ensuring its preservation while expanding its educational impact.

Rather than keeping the artwork solely behind gallery walls, the Foundation has made it the centerpiece of classroom-based learning experiences. Through this program, students explore the themes of Charlotte’s Web—such as friendship, kindness, and growing up—alongside Williams’ illustration techniques, including line, composition, storytelling, and emotional expression. Students then apply what they learn by designing their own book covers inspired by personal themes or life experiences, encouraging creativity, reflection, and confidence through visual storytelling.

By engaging directly with an original work of art, students gain a deeper understanding of how illustrations shape stories and how artists transform imagination into enduring images. The program emphasizes that great art is not only something to admire, but something to learn from—and build upon.

In addition to its educational use, the original Charlotte’s Web cover art will be shared with the public through a special loan to the Richmond Museum of Art in Richmond, Indiana. The artwork will be on view from December 8 through March 16 in its first-ever museum exhibition.

Through initiatives like this, The Arts of Imagination Foundation continues its mission to inspire people of all ages by connecting them with original works of art and the imaginative legacies behind them—proving that stories, like art, are meant to be shared.