Louis Slobodkin

Louis Slobodkin (February 19, 1903 – May 1975) was an American sculptor, writer, and illustrator of numerous children's books.

Early life and education

Slobodkin was born on February 19, 1903, in Albany, New York. He attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City [1] from 1918 to 1923. He worked then as an elevator operator to sustain his living, as he studied Plato, Aquinas, Kant, and Goethe. He would deliberately get his elevator "stuck" between floors so he could read his books.

Career

Slobodkin married Florence Gersh, a poet and children's book writer in 1927, but he did not immediately become involved with children's literature. He illustrated his first children's book in 1941, The Moffats, by his friend, Eleanor Estes, with whom he collaborated on five more books. In 1944, he won the Caldecott Medal for illustrating Many Moons, written by James Thurber.[2] He wrote and illustrated the popular The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree book series. He was also the author of Sculpture; Principles and Practice.

During his career, Slobodkin illustrated nearly 90 books, 50 of which he also wrote.

He and his wife, Florence, collaborated on five books from 1958 to 1969, including The Cowboy Twins (1960). Slobodkin's last book was Wilbur the Warrior, published in 1972.

Teaching himself all manner of art from an early age, Slodbodkin began to sculpt art at the age of ten. During the early 1930s he served as an assistant to Malvina Hoffman while she was creating the sculptures that would constitute The Races of Mankind exhibition at the Field Museum of Natural History.[3]

His first brush with fame came in 1938 when his statue "Abraham Lincoln, Rail Fence Mender," cast in plaster, appeared at the 1939–1940 World's Fair, only to be abruptly removed and destroyed at the behest of an official who found the sculpture offensive. With the help of many of his friends in the art world, a bronze version of the plaster original was permanently placed in the Headquarters Building of the Department of the Interior in Washington, DC. Another plaster version resides in Lincoln, Nebraska.[4][5][6]

Death

Louis Slobodkin died in May 1975.

Selected works

Fiction

Autobiographical

Non-fiction

Illustrated works

References

  1. ↑ Gilbert, Dorothy B., ‘’Who’s Who in American Art 1962’’, R.R. Bowker Company, New York, 1962
  2. ↑ http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/caldecottmedal/caldecottwinners/caldecottmedal
  3. ↑ Kinkel, Marianne, ‘’Races of Mankind: The Sculptures of Malvina Hoffman’’, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL, 2011 pp. 73-75
  4. ↑ Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection. Statues of Abraham Lincoln: Louis Slobodkin.
  5. ↑ Reid, Carol. "Statue of Limitations". Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  6. ↑ Jacob, Kathryn Allamong (1998). Testament to Union: Civil War Monuments in Washington, Pt. 3. JHU Press. p. 115.
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