David Wiesner
David Wiesner | |
|---|---|
 Wiesner at the Mazza Museum in 2011 | |
| Born | David Wiesner February 5, 1956 Bridgewater Township, New Jersey |
| Occupation | Illustrator, writer |
| Nationality | American |
| Period | 1980–present |
| Genre | Children's picture books |
| Notable works | |
| Notable awards | Caldecott Medal 1992, 2002, 2007 |
David Wiesner (born February 5, 1956) is an American illustrator and writer of children's books, known best for picture books including some that tell stories without words. As an illustrator he has won three Caldecott Medals recognizing the year's "most distinguished American picture book for children"[1] and he was one of five finalists in 2008 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available for creators of children's books.[2]
Life
[edit]Wiesner was born and raised in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey, and attended Bridgewater-Raritan High School. He graduated from Rhode Island School of Design with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in illustration.[3] Wiesner currently resides outside of Philadelphia with his family.
Career
[edit]Wiesner's first book was Honest Andrew, a picture book with text by Gloria Skurzynski, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1980. That year he also illustrated a novel by Avi, Man From the Sky (Knopf, 1980). After illustrating a dozen or more books with other writers, he and his wife Kim Kahng co-wrote Loathsome Dragon, a picture book with his illustrations that G.P. Putnam's published in 1987. Since then Wiesner has created many picture books solo—as writer and illustrator, or stories without words. Free Fall (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1988) was a Caldecott Honor Book, a runner-up for the annual Caldecott Medal, conferred by the American Library Association on the illustrator of the year's best-illustrated picture book.[1]
Free Fall was the first example of the predominant style of his solo books, which tell a fantastical, often dream-like story without words, only illustrations. Subsequently he won three Caldecott Medals for solo picture books—Tuesday (1991), The Three Pigs (2001), and Flotsam (2006)—and he was one of the runners-up for Sector 7 (1999) and Mr. Wuffles! (2013).[4]
In January 2017, Wiesner had a retrospective art exhibition entitled David Wiesner & the Art of Wordless Storytelling at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. In the exhibition Wiesner showed his work highlights throughout the years of his career.[5]
Works
[edit]As writer and illustrator
[edit]- 1987 Loathsome Dragon, retold by Wiesner and Kim Kahng
- 1988 Free Fall
- 1990 Hurricane
- 1991 Tuesday
- 1992 June 29, 1999
- 1999 Sector 7
- 2001 The Three Pigs
- 2006 Flotsam[6]
- 2010 Art & Max
- 2013 Mr. Wuffles!
- 2017 Fish Girl
- 2018 I Got It!
- 2020 Robobaby
As illustrator
[edit]- 1980 Honest Andrew by Gloria Skurzynski
- 1980 Man from the Sky by Avi
- 1981 Ugly Princess by Nancy Luenn
- 1981 One Bad Thing about Birthdays by David R. Collins
- 1981 Boy who Spoke Chimp by Jane Yolen
- 1982 Owly by Mike Thaler
- 1982 Neptune Rising: Songs and Tales of the Undersea Folk by Jane Yolen
- 1983 Miranty and the Alchemist by Vera Chapman
- 1984 Dark Green Tunnel by Allan W. Eckert
- 1985 Wand: the Return to Mesmeria by Allan W. Eckert
- 1985 E.T., the Storybook of the Green Planet by William Kotzwinkle; based on the film story by Steven Spielberg and Melissa Mathison
- 1986 Kite Flier by Dennis Haseley
- 1988 Firebrat by Nancy Willard
- 1989 The Rainbow People by Laurence Yep
- 1989 The Sorcerer's Apprentice by Marianna Mayer
- 1991 Tongues of Jade by Laurence Yep
- 1994 Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting
Other
[edit]- 1989 Cover for The Glass Salamander by Ann Downer
- 1997 Story and Design for CD-ROM adventure game The Day the World Broke
References
[edit]- ^ a b
"Caldecott Medal & Honor Books, 1938–Present". Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC). American Library Association (ALA).
"The Randolph Caldecott Medal". ALSC. ALA. Retrieved 2013-07-16. - ^
"IBBY Announces Winners of 2008 Hans Christian Andersen Awards". International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). Press release 31 March 2008.
"Hans Christian Andersen Awards". IBBY. Retrieved 2013-07-22. - ^ Article for the Horn Book, David Wiesner. Accessed September 4, 2019. "A guy walked into my tenth-grade art class at Bridgewater-Raritan high school New Jersey, and changed my life. Sounds like the setup for a classic punch line, but this was no joke. The guy had graduated from my school two years earlier and was now a student at some place called the Rhode Island School of Design. He said it was an art school."
- ^ Metzler, Laura. "LibGuides: Caldecott Award Books: All Caldecott Award Winners". abqlibrary.org. Retrieved 2024-01-24.
- ^ Donelan, Charles (February 9, 2017). "David Wiesner at SBMA". The Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved March 10, 2024.
- ^ David Small (November 12, 2006). "Fish in Focus". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-06-16. Review of Flotsam (Clarion Books, 2007).
External links
[edit]
- Official website
- David Wiesner at Library of Congress Authorities —with 30 catalog records
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
| Kim Kahng | |
- American children's writers
- American children's book illustrators
- Bridgewater-Raritan High School alumni
- Caldecott Medal winners
- 1956 births
- Living people
- People from Bridgewater Township, New Jersey
- Writers who illustrated their own writing
- Caldecott Honor winners
- Rhode Island School of Design alumni
- Writers from New Jersey