Roger Antoine Duvoisin (August 28, 1900 – June 30, 1980)[1] was a Swiss-born American writer and illustrator best known for children'spicture books. He won the 1948 Caldecott Medal for picture books[2] and in 1968 he was a highly commended runner-up for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's illustrators.[3]
Life
Duvoisin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1900. He learned to draw early having been encouraged by his father, who was an architect, and his godmother, a well-known painter of enamels.[4] He studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. His first job was designing scenery, making posters, and painting murals. He also became a manager of an old French pottery plant before becoming involved with textile design, an occupation that eventually brought him to the United States.[4] He married Louise Fatio, another artist from Switzerland. In 1927, they moved to New York City where he worked on children's books and magazine illustrations. He became an American citizen in 1938.[5]
Duvoisin died in June 1980. He sometimes gave 1904 as his year of birth but he was nearly 80 at his death, born in 1900—the US Library of Congress learned from a publisher, indirectly from his widow.[1] Jeanne Blackmore, Duvoisin's granddaughter, is also an author with her first children's book, How Does Sleep Come? published in 2012.[6]
Fatio wrote and Duvoisin illustrated The Happy Lion, a picture book published by McGraw-Hill in 1954. It was her first book and the first of ten Happy Lion books they created together (1954–1980). Its German-language edition (Der glückliche Löwe) won the inaugural 1956 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.[a]
Duvoisin both wrote and illustrated a successful series featuring Petunia the goose and Veronica the hippopotamus,[8] inaugurated by Petunia (Alfred A. Knopf, 1950) and Veronica (Knopf, 1961; The Bodley Head, 1961). Duvoisin's works also include translation and illustration of medieval European folk tales such as The Crocodile in the Tree (1973).
In 1961, he received an award from the Society of Illustrators. In 1966, he received the Rugers Bi-Centennial award.
His books were published by The Bodley Head Ltd in London, Sydney and Toronto.[clarification needed]
Books
As writer and illustrator
A Little Boy Was Drawing (1932)
Donkey–donkey (1934)
All Aboard! (1935)
And There Was America (1938)
The Three Sneezes and Other Swiss Tales (1941); published in the UK as Fairy Tales from Switzerland (1941)
The Christmas Cake In Search of Its Owner (1941)
They Put Out to Sea: The Story of the Map (1944)
The Christmas Whale (1945)
The Christmas Voyage (1947)
Chanticleer (1947)
The Petunia series (1950–75)
Petunia (1950)
Petunia and the Song (1951)
Petunia's Christmas (1952)
Petunia Takes a Trip (1953)
Petunia, Beware! (1958)
Petunia, I Love You (1965)
Petunia's Treasure (1975)
A for the Ark (1952)
Easter Treat (1954)
Two Lonely Ducks (1955)
One Thousand Christmas Beards (1955)
The House of Four Seasons (1956)
Day and Night (1960)
The Happy Hunter (1961)
The Veronica series (1961–71)
Veronica (1961)
Our Veronica Goes to Petunia's Farm (1962)
Veronica's Smile (1964)
Lonely Veronica (1964)
Veronica and the Birthday Present (1971)
The Miller, His Son, and Their Donkey, a retelling of the fable (1962)
^"Ergebnis ... 181–189 von 189". [Last page of search report; 1957 to 1955 publications.] Deutsche National Bibliothek (portal.dnb.de). Retrieved 2014-09-14.
Roger Duvoisin 1904–1980, Mother Goose: A Scholarly Exploration, ECLIPSE, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University (eclipse.rutgers.edu)
