Brian Wildsmith facts for kids

Brian Lawrence Wildsmith (born January 22, 1930 – died August 31, 2016) was a famous British painter and illustrator of children's books. He was known for making illustrations that were just as important as the words in his books. In 1962, he won a special award called the Kate Greenaway Medal for his amazing pictures in a wordless alphabet book called ABC. His work was so good that he was also a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1966 and 1968, which is a very big honor for children's book creators.

About Brian Wildsmith

Brian Wildsmith was born in 1930 in Penistone, a small town in England. When he was seventeen, he started studying art at the Barnsley School of Art. During this time, he met Aurélie Ithurbide, who he would later marry.

After Barnsley, Brian won a scholarship to the famous Slade School of Fine Art in London. He studied there for three years, from 1949 to 1952.

Starting His Career

After art school, Brian served in the British Army for a short time. In 1955, he married Aurélie. That same year, he began teaching at Selhurst High School.

Around this time, he also started designing covers for books. He drew pictures for children's books published by well-known companies like Faber and Faber and Oxford University Press.

His Love for Color

Brian really loved painting and wanted to illustrate books in full color. In 1957, he met Mabel George from Oxford University Press. She gave him his first chance to illustrate a book in color. It was for Arabian Nights in 1961.

This experiment was a big success! Because of this, she asked him to illustrate ABC (1962). This book was a huge hit and won the Kate Greenaway Medal. From then on, Brian worked with many editors who loved his colorful style.

Life in France

From 1971, Brian Wildsmith lived in France with his wife, Aurélie, and their four children: Clare, Rebecca, Anna, and Simon. They lived in a village near Cannes and Grasse. His son, Simon, also became an artist who makes prints.

His Amazing Illustrations

Brian Wildsmith is thought of as one of the best children's book illustrators ever. The British Library Association gave him the Kate Greenaway Medal for his first book, ABC, in 1962. This award is for the best children's book illustrations by a British artist.

Several of his other books were also highly praised for the Greenaway Medal:

• Oxford Book of Poetry for Children (1963)
• The Lion and the Rat: A Fable (1963)
• Birds (1967)
• The Owl and the Woodpecker (1971)

In Birds, each page shows a different group of birds, like a "gaggle of geese." The Owl and the Woodpecker was a special book because Brian both wrote and illustrated it himself.

International Recognition

The Hans Christian Andersen Award is a very important award for children's book creators around the world. Brian Wildsmith was a runner-up for the illustration award in both 1966 and 1968. This shows how much his work was admired globally.

Wildsmith's Legacy

In 1994, a special museum called the Brian Wildsmith Art Museum opened in Japan, near Tokyo. About one and a half million people visited an exhibition of his work there in 2005! Eight hundred of his paintings are on loan to the museum.

In 2017, The Story Museum in the UK held an exhibition called Wild About Colour. It showed many of Brian's pieces alongside works by other illustrators who were inspired by his use of color.

Brian Wildsmith passed away in Grasse, France, in 2016.

Selected Works

Here are some of Brian Wildsmith's well-known books:

• ABC (Oxford, 1962) — winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal
• 1 2 3 (Oxford, 1965)
• Birds (Oxford, 1967)
• The Circus (Oxford, 1970)
• The Owl and the Woodpecker (Oxford, 1971)
• Little Wood Duck (Oxford, 1972)
• A Christmas story (Oxford, 1989)
• The Easter story (Oxford, 1993)
• Saint Francis (Oxford, 1997)
• Exodus (Oxford, 1998)
• Jesus (Oxford, 2000)
• Mary (Oxford, 2007)
• Moses (Oxford, 2007)