UConn Library
Archives and Special Collections Blog[slideshow_deploy id=’730′]The Katie Davis exhibit in the Dodd Research Center Gallery will be coming down on February 22, 2013, in the early morning. So if you haven’t seen it yet, you’ll want to come in soon. It’s a wonderful exhibit documenting Katie’s creative process. And, trust me, is she ever creative.
[slideshow_deploy id=’705′]One of our favorite NCLC donors, Tomie dePaola, is the cover guy for the winter 2012/2013 Kearsarge magazine, with a great article inside written by John Walters accompanied by lovely photography by Tom McNeill. Now 78 years old, Tomie has published something like 250 books. His newest book, The birds of Bethlehem, is a retelling of the Nativity story from a bird’s perspective. John Walters interviewed Tomie about his life and love of reading and art, his teaching career, and his outlook on the many awards he has received. His favorite, Walters reports, is that his hometown of Meriden, Connecticut, named its children’s library after him.
The Angel for Tomie’s 2012 Christmas card is a “re-imagining” of one of his designs for a hand-screened greeting card business in Vermont in the late 1950’s. Tomie has changed the background, added color and lettering, and reports, “It’s an interesting thing to take an image that is fifty-plus years old and re-visiting it.”
Tomie’s house is full of ornaments he has designed himself, in addition to a large collection of folk art from around the world. And, Walters reports, “plenty of poinsettias.”
The Katie Davis exhibit is up and running in the Dodd Center Gallery. Original materials from the Davis Papers for her books The Curse of Addy McMahon, Party Animals, Mabel the Tooth Fairy, Who Hoots and Who Hops are featured as well as books and some great “Scared Guy” items. The exhibit runs from October 29, 2012 to February 22, 2013. There will be a reception and gallery talk by Katie on Saturday, Nov. 10, from 2-4 in the Dodd Center. Her books will be for sale at the Book Fair. For more information to go bookfair.uconn.edu.
Katie Davis exhibit, Northeast Children’s Literature Collection
Congratulations, Tomie! According to the Society’s home page, “The Lifetime Achievement Awards were established in 2005 by past chairs of The Original Art. Nominees must be judged to have a body of work that documents an innovative and pioneering contribution to the field of children’s book illustration, and final selection is made by artists whose work has been juried into the previous year’s show. ”
From an early age, Tomie and his parents knew he would be an artist. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York where he studied Art. His Master of Fine Arts degree was received from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. He has also been awarded three honorary Doctorate degrees from separate Universities and Colleges.
Tomie’s career as a professional artist and designer, former teacher of art, children’s author and illustrator is expansive. He has designed greeting cards, posters, magazine and catalogue covers, record album covers, and theater costumes and sets. He has illustrated over two hundred books, and written over seventy. Tomie has won numerous awards, including the prestigious American Library Association’s Caldecott Honor Award for Strega Nona (1976), the University of Minnesota’s Kerlan Award (1981), the Catholic Library Association’s Regina Medal (1983), and the Smithsonian Institution’s Smithson Medal (1990).
Tomie’s books have been published world-wide in fifteen different languages and he has over five million copies in print. Many of his books are largely autobiographical such as Nana Upstairs, Nana Downstairs, Tom, and The Art Lesson. Tomie currently resides in New Hampshire.
The Tomie dePaola Collection contains artwork, sketch books and paintings from the beginning of his career, as well as many different editions from each book he wrote or illustrated, including foreign editions. Some of the languages represented are Portuguese, Swedish, Finnish, French Canadian, German, Afrikaans, and even Zulu. Original illustrations from books, as well as paintings and other art work spanning from his childhood years are included. The Collection also contains marketing items from his books, such as towels, porcelain jewelry containers, music boxes, paper goods (wrapping paper, cups & plates), quilts from schools, and a large selection of Christmas tree ornaments designed by Tomie for the Marshall Fields Christmas trees in Chicago.
Well done, Tomie!
–Terri J. Goldich, Curator
Ms. A. Siegel of Illinois has donated four illustrations for greeting cards created in the 1960s by Paul Galdone. Galdone was born in 1907 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary and immigrated to the United States in 1921. He studied art at the Art Student’s League and New York School for Industrial Design. After serving in World War II in the U.S. Army, Engineers, the author and illustrator of children’s books worked as a bus boy, electrician’s helper, and fur dryer, in addition to four years in the art department at Doubleday (NY). His work was awarded runner-up for the Caldecott Medal (Eve Titus, Anatole, 1957 and Anatole and the Cat, 1958) and was selected by the American Library Association for its Notable Books program (The Little Red Hen, Winter Danger, and Flaming Arrows). He died of a heart attack on 7 November 1986, in Nyack, NY.
Natalie Babbitt was interviewed yesterday by NPR host Rachel Martin to talk about Natalie’s new book “The Moon over High Street” published by Michael diCapua Books. Hear the interview and read the transcript at http://www.npr.org/2012/03/18/148858044/the-moon-childrens-book-tackles-lifelong-themes?sc=emaf.
The family of the late Coleen Salley have donated James Marshall’s book dummy for his “The Cut-ups cut loose” to the NCLC. The charming, 32-page dummy is accompanied by a letter from Mr. Marshall to Ms. Salley with a note about “our little book.” The dummy is black and white with some color on the title page. The book was published in 1987 by Viking Kestrel and is dedicated to Ms. Salley. This piece is the only item in the Marshall Papers for this title. Thank you, Salley Family, for this important addition to the NCLC.