Last
Thursday at the Society of Illustrators in New York, the children's books
community marked the opening of the Original Art Show's 30th anniversary. The exhibit was
founded by Dilys Evans, a past art director at Cricket magazine who
founded her own agency and has represented some of the most esteemed artists in
the children's book field, including three-time Caldecott Medalist David
Wiesner. At Thursday's opening, Evans received the 2010 Visionary Award.
This year's show features 129 books chosen from 554 entries submitted nationwide. The 2010 gold medal went to Renata Liwska for her illustrations in The Quiet Book, with text by Deborah Underwood (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). Silver medals went to Carson Ellis for her artwork in Dillweed's Revenge: A Deadly Dose of Magic, with text by Florence Parry Heide (HMH), and to Dan Santat for his illustrations in Oh No! (Or How My Science Project Destroyed the World), with text by Mac Burnett (Hyperion/Disney). The fifth Founder's Award, for "the most current promising new talent in children's book illustration" was given to Hyewon Yum for There Are No Scary Wolves.
The
Society gave two lifetime achievement awards. One went to Alice and Martin
Provensen, the husband-and-wife team who collaborated for more than 40 years
and produced, among other titles, the 1982 Caldecott Honor Book A Visit to
William Blake's Inn by Nancy Willard and the 1984 Caldecott Medal–winning The
Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, which they wrote
and illustrated. Viking's Regina Hayes accepted the award on Alice
Provensen's behalf, reading the artist's words: "Martin and I were lucky
to find each other and lucky to work in the best of careers."
The
other lifetime achievement award went to Eric Carle. In his acceptance speech,
Carle described his beginnings, when Bill Martin, Jr., called him after seeing a
lobster advertisement Carle had created and asked him to illustrate Brown
Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? He thanked "my wife for putting up
with me" and Ann Beneduce, his editor throughout his career. He noted that
Beneduce "didn't like the green worm" he'd created for one of his
books and insisted he turn it into a caterpillar. That book went on to be the
bestselling The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
The artwork will be on exhibition at the Society of Children's Illustrators through November 24. --Jennifer M. Brown