Fun / No Fun: Children's Book Art by James Stevenson Curator's Tour

Kids know him as the author and illustrator of hundreds of children’s books that induce fits of giggles with silliness voiced in an honest, simple, and gentle way. Deftly drawn with an assured line and colored with soft watercolor washes, Stevenson’s whimsical sketches evoke a sense of memory and nostalgia. The understated drawings are populated by a cast of characters in settings that Stevenson conjured precisely to suit the story. A 1990 New York Times article articulates how movies, a favorite entertainment, were his inspiration in the development of children’s books, ''You cast, write the script, set design, find the right actors, people you care about, have them say the right things, find locations, the right stove for the kitchen.'' In a 2019 documentary, Stevenson - Lost and Found, his family describes how the self-taught artist was always sketching and that the familial soundtrack was accompanied by the constant scratching of his pen on paper.