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Phoebe Erickson (1907–2006) was a children's book illustrator and author who is best remembered for her accurate depictions of wildlife and the natural world.
Phoebe Erickson | |
|---|---|
 Erickson working in her Hartford, Connecticut studio in 1952. | |
| Born | November 23, 1907 |
| Died | August 23, 2006 (aged 98) |
| Resting place | Bailey's Harbor, Wisconsin, US 45.0693°N 87.1461°E |
| Alma mater | School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia University |
| Occupation(s) | Author and illustrator |
Phoebe Erickson was born on November 23, 1907, in North Bay, Wisconsin, the twelfth of Swedish immigrants Axel and Emelia Erickson's eventual thirteen children.[1] She grew up on the family farm in Door County surrounded by animals and nature, something she later credited with greatly impacting the direction of her artistic career.[2] In a 1952 interview with the Hartford Courant titled Children Find Charm in Phoebe Erickson's Yarns and Drawings, Phoebe described her childhood as follows:[3]
"I drew pictures even before I started to read. My father bought some paper but I used it up in no time. So then I went out in the woods and cut some birchbark and covered that with drawings. It was fun to be behind the big kitchen stove on a rainy day and draw pictures of cowboys and indians, ponies and broncos. At that time in my life I had three ambitions: to be an artist, a poet, and a cowboy."
After finishing eight years of local schooling, Erickson graduated from Bailey's Harbor School in 1921.[4] She moved to Chicago to further her education by studying painting and design at the Art Institute of Chicago as a scholarship student from 1931 to 1933.[5] In 1937, she again moved to New York where she would eventually attend Columbia University.[6] Phoebe soon met trial lawyer Arthur Blair, and the two were later married in the Marble Collegiate Church.[5] Despite their marriage, Phoebe continued to publish books using her maiden name for the entirety of her career.[7]
Erickson and her husband spent their retirement restoring old homes in Spain and Sweden, before finally settling in New England.[8] Phoebe Erickson died at her home in Concord, New Hampshire, on August 23, 2006, at the age of 98. She is buried near her hometown in Bailey's Harbor, Wisconsin.[9]
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While attending the Art Institute of Chicago, Phoebe Erickson worked as a freelance illustrator for greeting card and playing card companies. One of the designs she created for the Arrco Playing Card Company, featuring two fawns in a forest, eventually caught the eye of a publisher at Children's Press and she was soon invited to write and illustrate an original children's book about foxes.[5] Erickson's first book, Slip: The Story of a Little Fox, was subsequently published by Children's Press in 1948.[10] Erickson began illustrating children's books full-time soon after, when she moved to New York City to attend Columbia University.[1]
In addition to writing over a dozen original children's books, Erickson was frequently employed as an illustrator by other children's authors. In 1950, she was invited to illustrate the American edition of the sequel to Felix Salten's Bambi.[11] She regularly collaborated with Thornton Burgess, a conservationist and prolific author of stories for children through the 1950s.[12]
Awards
In 1957, Erickson's original book Daniel 'Coon: The Story of a Pet Raccoon won the William Allen White Children's Book Award. She became the fifth recipient of what is now recognized as the oldest children's choice book award in the United States at a ceremony held at the College of Emporia in Kansas City, Kansas, on October 10, 1957.[5] In 1960, her book Double or Nothing was the fourth book selected as the winner of the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award, now known as the Vermont Golden Dome Book Award.[13]
In 1948, one of Erickson's watercolor illustrations was featured in the Whitney Museum of American Art's Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Sculpture, Watercolors, and Drawings.[14]
Collections
Phoebe Erickson's books continue to be held in numerous libraries and museums around the world. In 1954, she sent autographed copies of each of her books accompanied by some of her original drawings and paintings to the library she frequented in her childhood in Bailey's Harbor.[15] She later praised the library in an interview given more than a decade later, saying "Much of my early education I owe to my parents, the rest to the public library."[7]
The University of Minnesota maintains the Phoebe Erickson Collection of original sketches, illustrations, and production materials from 23 of Erickson's titles published between 1946 and 1966.[16]
- National Trust Museum of Childhood, Sudbury Hall, Derbyshire, UK.[17]\
- Thornton W. Burgess Museum, Sandwich, Massachusetts.[18]
- Miller Art Museum, Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.[19]
- Phoebe Erickson Room, Bailey's Harbor Library, Bailey's Harbor, Wisconsin.[9]
- Phoebe Erickson Collection, Elmer Andersen Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota.[16]
- Phoebe Erickson Papers, de Grummond Children's Literature Collection, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi.[20]
| Title | Author | Publisher | Year of Publication |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animals of Small Pond[21] | Phoebe Erickson | Chicago Press | 1960 |
| Baby Animal Friends | Phoebe Erickson | Grosset & Dunlap | 1954 |
| Baby Animal Stories[12] | Thornton Burgess | Grosset & Dunlap | 1949 |
| Bambi's Children[11] | Felix Salten | Random House | 1950 |
| Black Beauty (Revised Ed.)[22] | Anna Sewell | Random House | 1949 |
| Black Penny[23] | Phoebe Erickson | Alfred A. Knopf | 1951 |
| Cattail House[24] | Phoebe Erickson | Children's Press | 1962 |
| Daniel 'Coon: The Story of a Pet Racoon[25] | Phoebe Erickson | Alfred A. Knopf | 1954 |
| Double or Nothing[26] | Phoebe Erickson | Harper | 1958 |
| Holiday Storybook[27] | Thomas Y. Crowell Co. | 1952 | |
| Just Follow Me[28] | Phoebe Erickson | Follett Publishing Co. | 1960 |
| Little Peter Cottontail[12] | Thornton Burgess | Grosset & Dunlap | 1956 |
| Nature Almanac[29] | Thornton Burgess | Grosset & Dunlap | 1949 |
| Peter Rabbit, Henny Penny, The City Mouse and the Country Mouse[30] | Beatrix Potter | Grosset & Dunlap | 1947 |
| Seashells[31] | Ruth H. Dudley | Thomas Y. Crowell Co. | 1953 |
| Slip, The Story of a Little Fox[10] | Phoebe Erickson | Children's Press | 1948 |
| Stories Around the Year[12] | Thornton Burgess | Grosset & Dunlap | 1955 |
| The Adventures of Peter Cottontail[32] | Thornton W. Burgess | Grosset & Dunlap | 1958 |
| The Littlest Reindeer[33] | Johanna DeWitt | Children's Press | 1946 |
| The Uncle Wiggly Book[34] | Thornton W. Burgess | Grosset & Dunlap | 1955 |
| Uncle Debunkel; or, The Barely Believable Bears[35] | Phoebe Erickson | Alfred A. Knopf | 1964 |
| We Are Neighbors[36] | Odille Ousley | Ginn and Company | 1957 |
| Who's in the Mirror?[37] | Phoebe Erickson | Alfred A. Knopf | 1965 |
| Wildwing[38] | Phoebe Erickson | Harper | 1959 |
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