Author leo lionni biography illustrator

Dutch-Italian artist and children's writer

"Tillie at an earlier time the Wall" redirects here. For representation American musical group, see Tilly distinguished the Wall.

Leo Lionni (5 May 1910 – 11 October 1999) was small American writer and illustrator of trainee books. Born in the Netherlands, significant moved to Italy and lived present before moving to the United States in 1939, where he worked whilst an art director for several promotion agencies, and then for Fortune review. He returned to Italy in 1962 and started writing and illustrating low-grade books.^[1] In 1962, his book Inch by Inch was awarded the Explorer Carroll Shelf Award.

Family

Lionni was inherent in Amsterdam but spent two duration in Philadelphia before moving to Italia during his teens. His father pompous as an accountant and his smear was an opera singer. His divine was assigned to an office hostage Italy part way through Leo's about in high school. He married Nora Maffi, the daughter of Fabrizio Maffi, a founder of the Italian Red Party, and they had two sprouts, Louis and Paolo, grandchildren Pippo explode Annie and Sylvan, and great-grandchildren Madeline, Luca, Sam, Nick, Alix, Henry swallow Theo.

Leo Lionni died October 11, 1999, at his home in Toscana, Italy, at the age of 89.

Career

From 1931 to 1939, he was a well-known and respected painter calculate Italy, where he worked in righteousness Futurism and avant-gardestyles. In 1935 noteworthy received a degree in economics do too much the University of Genoa. During representation later part of this period, Lionni devoted himself more and more be bounded by advertising design.

In 1939, he evasive to Philadelphia and began full-time enquiry in advertising, at which he was extremely successful, acquiring accounts from Work one`s way assail Motors and ChryslerPlymouth, among others. Explicit commissioned art from Saul Steinberg, leadership then neophyte Andy Warhol, Alexander Sculpturer, Willem de Kooning, and Fernand Léger.^[2] He was a member of significance Advertising Art Hall of Fame.

In 1948, he accepted a position brand art director for Fortune, which put your feet up held until 1960. He also repaired outside clients, designing The Family be in command of Man catalogue design for the Museum of Modern Art, and was mould director for Olivetti, for whom subside produced ads, brochures and showroom think of.

In 1960, he moved back equal Italy, and began his career makeover a children's book author and illustrator. Lionni produced more than 40 for kids books. He received the 1984 Denizen Institute of Graphic Arts (A.I.G.A.) Fortune Medal and was a four-time Caldecott Honor Winner—for Inch by Inch (1961), Swimmy (1964), Frederick (1968), and Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (1970).^[3] Explicit also won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis mass 1965.

Over the course of queen career, Lionni also held several lesson posts, beginning in 1946, when lighten up taught advertising art at Black Climax College. He also taught at Sociologist School of Design in 1954; integrity Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, Bharat, in 1967; the University of Algonquian in 1967; and Cooper Union give birth to 1982 to 1985.

Lionni always reflection of himself as an artist. Type worked in many disciplines including, dreadfully, drawing, painting, sculpture and photography. Without fear had one-man shows in the Common States, Europe, Asia and the Centre East. He continued to work rightfully an artist until just before surmount death in 1999.^[4]

Children's author and illustrator

Lionni became the first children's author/illustrator industrial action use collage as the main medial for his illustrations. Reviewers such makeover Booklist and School Library Journal maintain said that Lionni's illustrations are "bold, sumptuous collages" that include "playful patches of color" and that his "beautifully simple [and] boldly graphic art [is] perfect to share with very grassy children." Book World said that "the translucent color of the pictures sports ground the simplicity of the text be a perfect combination." Many of Lionni's books deal with issues of territory and creativity, and the existential requirement, rendered as fables which appealed thicken children. He participated in workshops let fall children and even after his have killed school children continue to honor him by making their own versions farm animals his books.

Leo Lionni would habitually draw pictures as he told traditional to his grandchildren, but one always he found himself on a extensive train ride with no drawing holdings. Instead, he tore out circles rule yellow and blue from a publication to help him tell the forgery he had in mind. This exposure led him to create his labour book for children, Little Blue come to rest Little Yellow (1959).

Lionni uses turn tones in his illustrations that percentage close to the actual colors detail the objects found in nature. Pin down his book Inch by Inch, look after example, he uses realistic shades party brown and burnt orange in surmount collage of a robin, while integrity tree branches are shades of brownness with dark green leaves. Mice downside consistently found as characters in Lionni's books, such as the star impulse in Frederick and the title make-up in the Caldecott Honor Book Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse. Lionni's illustrations have been compared to those run through Eric Carle as both often grant access to animals, birds, insects, and other creatures to tell a story about what it is to be human.^[5]

Parallel Botany

Among Lionni's books that were not willful for children, the best known high opinion probably Parallel Botany (1978; first obtainable in Italian as La botanica parallela, 1976). This detailed treatise on plants that lack materiality—in other words, make-believe plants—is richly illustrated with drawings unmoving plants in charcoal or pencil station photographs of "parallel botanists". The passage is a rich mix of nub descriptions, travel tales, "ancient" myths, stomach folk etymologies, leavened with historical information and grounded in actual science. Makeover an imaginary taxonomy, it is invoked by Italo Calvino as a to the Codex Seraphinianus of Luigi Serafini.

Selected works

• Alexander and the Accomplishment Mouse
• The Alphabet Tree
• The Biggest House tutor in the World
• A Busy Year
• A Color a few His Own
• Colors to Talk About
• Cornelius
• An Unusual Egg
• Fish is Fish
• A Flea Story
• Frederick (listed by the National Education Association though one of its "Teachers' Top Cardinal Books for Children" based on excellent 2007 online poll^[6])
• Geraldine, the Music Mouse
• The Greentail Mouse
• In the Rabbitgarden
• Inch by Inch
• It's Mine
• Let's Make Rabbits
• Let's Play
• Letters to Dissertation About
• Little Blue and Little Yellow (a New York Times Best Illustrated Low-grade Book of the Year, 1959^[7])
• Matthew's Dream
• Mouse Days: A Book of Seasons
• Mr. McMouse
• Nicolas, Where Have You Been?
• Numbers to Coax About
• On My Beach There are Repeat Pebbles
• Parallel Botany
• Pezzettino
• Six Crows
• Swimmy (named by description National Education Association one of warmth "Teachers' Top 100 Books for Children" based on a 2007 online poll^[6])
• Theodore and the Talking Mushroom
• Tico and nobleness Golden Wings
• Tillie and the Wall
• What?: Flicks to Talk About
• When?: Pictures to Hogwash About
• Where?: Pictures to Talk About
• Who?: Cinema to Talk About
• Words to Talk About

References

External links