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Louis Slobodkin


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

Slobodkin was born on February 19, 1903, in Albany, New York. He attended the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York City 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.

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. 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.


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