{"id":9123,"date":"2020-04-01T14:52:07","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T14:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/?p=9123"},"modified":"2020-04-01T14:52:11","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T14:52:11","slug":"in-remembrance-of-our-friend-tomie-depaola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/2020\/04\/01\/in-remembrance-of-our-friend-tomie-depaola\/","title":{"rendered":"In Remembrance of Our Friend Tomie dePaola"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

[slideshow_deploy id=’9122′]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAn idea for me must be ‘heartfelt’–something that rings\ntrue for me–something worthy to share with children.\u201d \u2013 from an interview with\nTomie dePaola by Phyllis Boyson, Tomie dePaola: Storyteller of a New Era, New Era<\/em>, Vol. 62, Issue 3, 1981 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are saddened to hear of the passing of beloved\nillustrator and author Tomie dePaola, donor, supporter and friend to the\nNortheast Children\u2019s Literature Collection, held in the Archives & Special\nCollections at the University of Connecticut Library. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomie dePaola was born September 15, 1934 in Meriden,\nConnecticut. He received a Bachelor\u2019s degree from Pratt Institute in 1956 and\nlater a Master\u2019s degree from the California College of Arts and Crafts in\nOakland. dePaola shared his ideas with children in over 250 books over his\n55-year career, and for that effort has won many accolades. In 1976, he was\nawarded a Caldecott Honor for Strega Nona<\/em>\nand in 2000 a Newbery Medal Honor for the autobiographical work, 26 Fairmount Avenue<\/em>. The Association for\nLibrary Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association,\nawarded dePaola the biennial Children’s Literature Legacy Award in 2011. A year\nlater, the Society of Illustrators honored him with a Lifetime Achievement\nAward. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the interest of assuring that children and others would\nhave an opportunity to explore the process of turning worthy ideas into award\nwinning children\u2019s books, dePaola assembled and donated 70 linear feet of\narchival material to the Northeast Children\u2019s Literature Collection in 1999.\ndePaola was urged to preserve his papers by his former professor at Pratt\nInstitute, Roger L. Crossgrove, who had also been Department Head at the School\nof Fine Arts at UConn and was co-founder of the Northeast Children\u2019s Literature\nCollection. The mission of the Northeast Children\u2019s Literature Collection to\npreserve the history of the creation of our best literature written for\nchildren with an emphasis on illustration as an art form appealed to dePaola\u2019s\nconcern for showing the entire creative process, including the errors,\nrevisions, and failures that occur prior to an idea becoming a successful\npublication. dePaola continued to donate material through 2015, lending\nadditional depth to the collection through illustrations, book manuscripts, new\npublications, and original artwork. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tomie\ndePaola Papers<\/a> contain artwork and sketchbooks, manuscripts, research files\nand reference works, printed material, marketing products, and video recordings\nfrom 1949-2015. The strength of the collection is in the number of paintings\nand sketches produced by dePaola from 1953-1978, during his early artistic\ncareer. The collection also includes dePaola\u2019s reference library, mainly\ngraphic design, illustration, and art and craft magazines and encyclopedic book\ncollections on the ages of man and historically important painters. Actively\nused by students and researchers, works from the collection are often shown and\nloaned for exhibition. All of Our Angels<\/em>,\na picture book dePaola created for a Pratt class project was recently exhibited\nin The Picture Book Re-Imagined: the\nChildren\u2019s Book Legacy of Pratt Institute and the Bank Street College of\nEducation<\/em> (Pratt Manhattan Gallery, 2016). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

dePaola was a fervent supporter of UConn not only with the\ngenerous donation of his collection but also through his participation in the Connecticut\nChildren\u2019s Book Fair. In the 23-year history of the Fair, he joined us 9 times,\nmost recently in 2018. A popular guest, he seemed to relish in the idea of\nbringing together children from all over the state to tell his stories, and to\nhear theirs. In fact, the committee learned early on that they would need to rearrange\nboth the presentation room and signing spaces to accommodate the large crowds\nhe drew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999 the University honored dePaola with an Honorary\nDoctorate of Fine Arts, which was celebrated in true Tomie dePaola fashion with\na lighthearted roast and plenty of singing. In 2007 the Library honored him\nwith the inaugural Northeast Children\u2019s Literature Collection Distinguished Service\nAward for his long-standing contribution to the field of children\u2019s literature\nand support of the Northeast Children\u2019s Literature Collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While dePaola\u2019s legacy will live on in the archives, we will\nmiss his personality and passion for children\u2019s literature. We send our\ncondolences to his friends and family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[slideshow_deploy id=’9122′] \u201cAn idea for me must be ‘heartfelt’–something that rings true for me–something worthy to share with children.\u201d \u2013 from an interview with Tomie dePaola by Phyllis Boyson, Tomie dePaola: Storyteller of a New Era, New Era, Vol. 62, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[123],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NKyO-2n9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9123"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9123"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9126,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9123\/revisions\/9126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lib.uconn.edu\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}