Leonard Weisgard at LeonardWeisgard.com


Leonard Weisgard : Children's book artist and writer.

We've created this website to share the artwork and achievements of our father Leonard Weisgard. Enjoy!
Read also the news "Weisgard Artwork finds a Home at UConn" >>

“Down the Rabbit Hole with Lewis Carroll and Leonard Weisgard”
A series of photographs by Drew Tudman from the exhibition that was held at the Arne Nixon Center for the Study of Children's Literature (September 2011).

A department of the Henry Madden Library at California State University, Fresno, the Center is one of North America's leading resources for the study of children's and young adult literature

Here is the display of Lewis Carroll materials from the Arne Nixon Center’s extensive collection, including original art by Leonard Weisgard for his 1949 edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Materials on loan included original Alice-themed art by Charles M. Schulz for his "Peanuts" comic strip loaned by the Charles M. Schulz Museum, anamorphic Alice bronze sculptures loaned by artist Karen Mortillaro, and original art loaned by author/illustrator Byron Sewell.
The third-floor Pete P. Peters Ellipse Balcony showed additional illustrations from picture books by Leonard Weisgard.

Leonard Marcus gave a wonderful lecture entitled “Revolution in 32 Pages: How Leonard Weisgard and Friends Re-Invented the American Picture Book.” More about Leonard Marcus here>> http://www.leonardmarcus.com/index.html

You can see more photos from the exhibition here (under past events)
http://www.arnenixoncenter.org/events/index.shtml

Margaret Wise Brown & Leonard Weisgard

The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year. Leonard Weisgard was awarded the Caldecott for his illustrations for The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown.

Winner of The Caldecott Medal

"I've tried to tell you how elusive, really as elusive as that little island, it is for me to talk of illustrating and book making. Who dares to explain the poetry of living and dying or the minds of little children?"
Acceptance Speech for Caldecott Award

Complete speech...

Alice in Wonderland

Web work : A.W. formlab.dk SHSdesign


	"Golden Legacy" by Leonard Marcus

	”Leonard Marcus’ Golden Legacy is a lively, never-before-told history of a company, its line of books, the groundbreaking writers and artists who created them, the clever mavericks who marketed and sold them, and the cultural landscape that surrounded them.” (Diane Muldrow, Random House)

	Leonard Weisgard is beautifully represented in this new book and his daughter, Abigail, contributes with an essay “ Reflections on a Golden Egg.”

	"In Search of Margaret Wise Brown" By Leonard S. Marcus

	In October 1982, I flew from New York to Copenhagen to interview Leonard Weisgard for my biography of his close friend and frequent collaborator, Margaret Wise Brown. At the time of our meeting, I had only recently begun researching Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon. I had been “passed on” to Leonard, who was retired and rarely granted interviews, by another of his (and Margaret’s) old friends, the illustrator Clement Hurd, who in turn had seen me on the recommendation of a third Brown friend who had noticed my Author’s Query in the New York Times Book Review.

	A biographer’s work is an incredibly chancy as well as absorbing, mystery-laden business: Had any one of the three friends broken the chain, I doubt I would have found the material needed to write my book, especially as Brown herself had died thirty years earlier, at the age of 42, of an embolism following routine surgery. Brown’s papers and effects had, in the mean time, scattered to the four winds. continued...

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	See more about Leonard Marcus www.leonardmarcus.com

	"Miss Little's Gift" by Douglas Wood illustrated by Jim Burke

	We want to bring to everyone’s attention Douglas Wood’s wonderful, touching picture book called Miss Little’s Gift. It’s about a boy with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and the way that a kind teacher teaches him to read, using a special book. That special book is The Little Island by Margaret Wise Brown!


	Burke's beautiful illustrations (several actually are his interpretations of our father’s illustrations) make us wish we could have looked over his shoulder and seen him in the process of studying the details of the originals. We’re glad that The Little Island has been a help and inspiration for Douglas Wood and wish him all the best! See more at : DouglasWood.com

	"There was no one like Leonard" by Ken Chowder
	There was no one like Leonard, even Leonard himself. Leonard was gracious and generous and beautifully well-spoken and -dressed; he was also reclusive and agoraphobic and capable of saying virtually anything, or nothing at all. He reveled in attention, and hated it. He loved conversation and adored people, then lived far out in the country (in two countries, in fact) where he saw very few of them. He was politically active for years, and hated politics. He worked like a dog for some 30 years, illustrating many hundreds of books and writing many more; then he simply stopped far before what one could call retirement, and spent about 25 or 30 more years not working much more than a stitch.

	Continued...
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