The Original Art 2008 : Society of Illustrators

OA JURY:

CHRIS CONOVER: Chris Conover is a lifelong New Yorker and comes from a family of artists. Though she attended New York’s High School of Music and Art and State University of Buffalo’s Art School, her watercolor technique and illustration style are self taught. The first book she wroteand illustrated, Six Little Ducks, won a Boston Globe/Horn Book honor for illustration. She has continued writing and illustrating ever since. She is proud to have exhibited in “The Original Art” exhibition from it’s very first year. Some of Chris’s most recent books are: The Lion’s Share, in print in five languages; Over the Hills and Far Away, a CBC/IRA Children’s Choice; and The Christmas Bears.
JANE CURLEY: Art historian Jane Curley divides her time between two passions: the Victorian aesthetic era and children’s picture books. She serves on the board of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA, and, as an independent curator, has organized exhibitions there on Chris Van Allsburg, William Steig, Nancy Burkert, and Hardie Gramatky. With Leonard Marcus and Caroline Ward, she curated the museum’s fifth anniversary show, “Children Should Be Seen,” a survey of the best in picture book art over the last fifty years, currently on view at the Los Angeles Public Library. She has also curated exhibitions, lectured, and written articles on aspects of Victorian children’s literature.
ANNE HOPPE: Anne Hoppe started her career in publishing at the Horn Book Magazine and David R. Godine, Publisher. In 1994 she joined HarperCollins Children’s Books, where projects she has edited include the Caldecott Honor book The Stray Dog by Marc Simont and Alice Walker’s bestselling Why War Is Never a Good Idea, illustrated by Stefano Vitale.
WILLIAM LOW: William Low has been an award-winning painter and illustrator for over twenty-three years, and he is the principal in Cobalt Illustration Studios. William wrote and illustrated Old Penn Station. He has also illustrated books by T.A. Barron, Amy Little Sugar, Eve Bunting, and Bruce Edward Hall. William has been teaching painting and illustration for over twenty years. He is a professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology where he teaches an innovative painting technique on the computer. He has taught at the School of Visual Arts and has conducted lectures and seminars at the Ringling School of Art, Syracuse University, Maryland Institute College of Art, the Society of Illustrators, and the Norman Rockwell Museum.
DAVID SHANNON: David Shannon grew up in Spokane, Washington, and graduated from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 1983. He has written and/or illustrated over twenty-five books for children, including the best-selling Good Boy, Fergus!, A Bad Case of Stripes, and the semi-autobiographical No, David!, which received a Caldecott Honor. His newest book is Too Many Toys.
TAEEUN YOO: Taeeun Yoogrew up in Seoul, Korea, in her grandfather’s beautiful garden house – part of a large traditional family of nine. She studied Korean brush painting at Hong Ik University in Korea and moved to New York to attend graduate school in illustration at the School of Visual Arts. Her work has appeared in Cricket and Ladybug magazines and in the New York Times. Her first picture book, The Little Red Fish, was the winner of the 2007 Original Art Founder’s Award. Her second, The Umbrella Queen, by Shirin Yim Bridges, will be published by Greenwillow Books. She lives in New York City and enjoys walking on the streets, listening to street musicians, and drawing on location.
ED YOUNG: Caldecott Medalist Ed Young is the illustrator of over eighty books for children, fifteen of which he has written. Born in Tientsin, China, Ed came to the United States to study architecture but turned instead to his love of art. He finds inspiraion for his work in the philosophy of Chinese painting. A graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Ed has since taught at the Pratt Institute, Yale University, Naropa Institute, and the University of California at Santa Cruz. In 1990 his book Lon Po Po was awarded the Caldecott Medal. He has also received Caldecott honors for The Emperor and the Kite and Seven Blind Mice. He was twice nominated for the esteemed Hans Christian Andersen Medal. He lives in Westchester, New York, with his two daughters and two cats.