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The editors had a wealth of talent to draw on. New York was teeming with refugees from the war in Europe, among them accomplished artists. Tibor Gergely would illustrate over 70 Golden Books (the larger line of which the Little Goldens were probably the most successful format), among them The Great Big Fire Engine Book, Tootle, and Scuffy the Tugboat. He was born in Budapest and drew caricatures for Viennese newspapers before emigrating to the United States in 1939.
Feodor Rojankovsky was a graduate of the Moscow Fine Arts Academy. Wounded during service in the Russian infantry in World War I, he sketched and painted war scenes that became his first published art. He worked in Poland, then Paris in the 1930s, fleeing to America after the fall of France in 1940. His The Three Bears bristles with Russianness, planting in young Boomer minds an image of the quintessential wooden dacha in the woods.
There are lots of well known children's book illustrator's names in that article- and there's a 60 picture exhibition tour of some of their original art work. It might be coming soon to a venue near you:
Booked nearly solid through January 2012, "Golden Legacy" opened at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha on June 6. It is slated to be seen later in Amherst, Massachusetts; Wauconda, Illinois; Weslaco, Texas; Chicago; Richmond; Salt Lake City; and Greenville, South Carolina.
I hope to see one of those. How about you? Have a favorite Little Golden Book illustrator? Favorite LG book?
