Exhibit "The Making of a Picture Book: The Marriage of Text and Art"

The UMass Amherst Libraries is hosting an exhibit “The Making of a Picture Book: The Marriage of Text and Art” on the Lower Level of Du Bois Library through December 18, 2009. The exhibit features a behind-the-scenes look at the making of picture books by local authors and illustrators Leonard Baskin, Kathryn Brown, Corinne Demas, Patricia MacLachlan, Richard Michelson, Dennis Nolan, Katy Schneider, and Jane Yolen.

Featured in the exhibit are The Littlest Matryoshka by Corinne Demas and Kathryn Brown; The Perfect Wizard by Jane Yolen and Dennis Nolan; Once I Ate a Pie by Patricia MacLachlan and Emily MacLachlan Charest and Katy Schneider; and Ten Times Better by Richard Michelson and Leonard Baskin.

A reception for the exhibit will be held on October 4, 2009, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at Memorial Hall, UMass Amherst, as part of the 11th Annual Friends of the Library Fall Reception. The keynote speaker, author and exhibit curator Corinne Demas will give a talk “Behind the Book: Creativity and Compromise.” Refreshments will be served. The event and exhibit are free and open to the public.

Leonard Baskin (1922–2000) was a sculptor, book illustrator, printmaker, graphic artist, and writer. He was founded Gehenna Press while at Yale in 1942, which specialized in the production of fine books. He taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College. Baskin received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Gold Medal of the National Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award. He had many retrospective exhibitions, including those at the Smithsonian, the Albertina, and the Library of Congress. His works are owned by many major museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the British Museum, and the Vatican Museums.

Kathryn Brown is the author and illustrator of Muledred, and has illustrated picture books by many authors, including Jane Yolen’s Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mole, Cynthia Rylant’s The Old Woman Who Named Things, Mem Fox’s Tough Boris, and the poetry collection Climb into My Lap, First Poems to Read Together edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Her most recent picture book is My Little Grandmother Often Forgets by Reeve Lindbergh.

Corinne Demas, professor of English at Mount Holyoke College and fiction editor for The Massachusetts Review, is the author of two collections of short stories, two novels, a memoir and numerous books for children. Her Ph.D. in Literature is from Columbia University. Demas’ books include Always in Trouble (2009), Valentine Surprise (2008), Yuck! Stuck in the Muck (2006), Two Christmas Mice (2005), Saying Goodbye to Lulu (2004), and a memoir Eleven Stories High: Growing Up in Stuyvesant Town, 1948-1968 (2000), among others.

Patricia MacLachlan is known for her award-winning picture books and novels for children, which include The Sick Day; Arthur, for the Very First Time; Sarah, Plain and Tall; and The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt. She has co-authored several picture books with her daughter, Emily MacLachlan Charest, including Bittle. Two of her books were illustrated by local artists: What you Know First (Barry Moser) and Three Names (Alexander Pertzoff). She has received Golden Kite Awards for many of her books and the Newbery Medal winner for Sarah, Plain and Tall.

Richard Michelson is a poet and the author of many picture books, including Tuttle’s Red Barn, Too Young for Yiddish, and Sydney Taylor Award winning As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel's Amazing March Toward Freedom. The R. Michelson Gallery in Northampton features the work of many area children’s book illustrators.

Dennis Nolan has written and illustrated a number of picture books, including The Castle Builder, winner of the Prix de Zephir in France, and Dinosaur Dream, a season’s choice in both Newsweek and The New Yorker. He has illustrated T.H. White’s classic, The Sword in the Stone, and two of Bruce Coville’s retellings of Shakespeare plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet, along with numerous other books, including Dove Isabeau and Wings by Jane Yolen. Nolan is an MFA Faculty member of Hartford Art School.

Katy Schneider exhibits her paintings nationwide, and is on the faculty of Smith College. Her most recent solo exhibition was at the Pepper Gallery in Boston. Painting the Wind won the Best Book Award and was her first picture book. Once I Ate a Pie won the Irma S. and James H. Black Book Award. Schneider has a B.A. from Yale University and an MFA from Indiana University.

Jane Yolen is the author of more than 300 books, including science fiction, fantasy, and poetry. Her 150 picture books include How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight, Caldecott award winning Owl Moon, and recently published Mirror to Nature, illustrated by her son, photographer Jason Stemple. She has collaborated with many local illustrators including Kathryn Brown, Jane Dyer, Barry Moser, and Ruth Sanderson. Her books and stories have won two Nebulas, a World Fantasy Award, A Caldecott, the Golden Kite Award, the Jewish Book Award, two Christopher Medals, and many more awards.

For more information, contact Jim Kelly (413) 545-3971, or jrkelly@library.umass.edu, or go to: http://tiny.cc/picturebook.