Leo Lionni
Encyclopedia
Leo Lionni was an author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

 and illustrator
Illustrator
An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

 of children's books
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

. Born in Holland, he moved to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and lived there before moving to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 in 1939, where he worked as an art director for several advertising agencies, and then for Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...

magazine. He returned to Italy in 1962 and started writing and illustrating children's books. In 1962 his book Inch by Inch was awarded the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
Lewis Carroll Shelf Award
The Lewis Carroll Shelf Award was started in 1958 by Dr. David C. Davis with the assistance of Prof. Lola Pierstorff, Director Instructional Materials Center, Univ. of Wisconsin and Madeline Allen Davis, WHA Wisconsin Public Radio. Awards were presented annually at the Wisconsin Book Conference...

.

Family

Lionni's father was a Sephardic Jew who worked in the diamond business and his mother was an opera singer. He grew up in a house filled with his uncle's art collection. He lived within short walking distance of the two great museums in Amsterdam, the Rijksmuseum, and the Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...

.

He married Nora Maffi, the daughter of the founder of the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...

, and they had two sons, and later, grandchildren by both sons.

Leo Lionni died October 11, 1999, at his home in Tuscany
Tuscany
Tuscany is a region in Italy. It has an area of about 23,000 square kilometres and a population of about 3.75 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence ....

, Italy, at the age of 89.

Career

From 1931 to 1939 he was a well known and respected painter in Italy, where he worked in the Futurism
Futurism
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century.Futurism or futurist may refer to:* Afrofuturism, an African-American and African diaspora subculture* Cubo-Futurism* Ego-Futurism...

 and avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....

 styles. In 1935 he received a doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...

 degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...

 in economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

 (1935) from the University of Genoa
University of Genoa
The University of Genoa is one of the largest universities in Italy.Located in Liguria on the Italian Riviera, the university was founded in 1471. It currently has about 40,000 students, 1,800 teaching and research staff and about 1,580 administrative staff.- Campus :The University of Genoa is...

. During the later part of this period Lionni devoted himself more and more to advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

 design.

In 1939 he moved to Philadelphia and began full time work in advertising, at which he was extremely successful, acquiring accounts from Ford Motors, and Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

 Plymouth
Plymouth (automobile)
Plymouth was a marque of automobile based in the United States, produced by the Chrysler Corporation and its successor DaimlerChrysler.-Origins:...

, among others. He commissioned art from Saul Steinberg
Saul Steinberg
Saul Steinberg was a Romanian-born American cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for The New Yorker.-Biography:...

, the then neophyte Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder was an American sculptor and artist most famous for inventing mobile sculptures. In addition to mobile and stable sculpture, Alexander Calder also created paintings, lithographs, toys, tapestry, jewelry and household objects.-Childhood:Alexander "Sandy" Calder was born in Lawnton,...

, Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning
Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....

, and Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of Cubism which he gradually modified into a more figurative, populist style...

.

In 1948 he accepted a position as art director for Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...

, which he held until 1960.

In 1960 he moved back to Italy, where he began his career as a children's book author and illustrator. Lionni produced more than 40 children's books. He received the 1984 American Institute of Graphic Arts
American Institute of Graphic Arts
AIGA is an American professional organization for design. Organized in 1914, AIGA currently has more than 22,000 members throughout 66 chapters and more than 200 student groups nationwide...

 (A.I.G.A.) Gold Medal and was a four-time Caldecott Honor Winner—for Inch by Inch (1961), Swimmy (1964), Frederick (1968), and Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (1970). He also won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
The Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis is an annual award established in 1956 by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth to recognise outstanding works of children's literature. It is Germany's only state-funded literary award. In the past, authors from many countries...

in 1965.

Selected works

  • Alexander and the Wind-up Mouse
  • The Alphabet Tree
  • The Biggest House in the World
  • A Busy Year
  • A Color of His Own
  • Colors to Talk About
  • Cornelius: A Fable
  • An Extraordinary Egg
  • Fish is Fish
  • A Flea Story
  • Frederick
  • Geraldine, the Music Mouse
  • The Greentail Mouse
  • I Want to Stay Here! I Want to Go There!: A Flea Story
  • In the Rabbitgarden
  • Inch by Inch
  • It's Mine
  • Let's Make Rabbits: A Fable
  • Let's Play
  • Letters to Talk About
  • Little Blue and Little Yellow (a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book of the Year, 1959)
  • Matthew's Dream
  • Mouse Days: A Book of Seasons
  • Mr. McMouse
  • Nadarin
  • Nicolas, Where Have You Been?
  • Numbers to Talk About
  • On My Beach There are Many Pebbles
  • Parallel Botany
  • Pezzettino
  • Pulgada a Pulgada
  • Six Crows: A Fable
  • Swimmy
  • Theodore and the Talking Mushroom
  • Tico and the Golden Wings
  • Tillie and the Wall
  • Una Piedra Extraordinaria
  • What?: Pictures to Talk About
  • When?: Pictures to Talk About
  • Where?: Pictures to Talk About
  • Who?: Pictures to Talk About
  • Words to Talk About

External links

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