MAURICE SENDAK
American author and illustrator (1928)
Biography:
Maurice Sendak, from Hungarian origin, was born in Brookling, New York, in 1928. He began his work as illustrator when he was still at high school. He went to art school at the Art Students' League to continue his education.
At the early age of 9, together with his brother Jack, he wrote his first children's books. As a child, his favourite authors were Stevenson, Twain and Melville.
He is a man of ecclectic interests, for he has drawn costumes for operas and has written and illustrated various works. Since 1951 Sendak has produced more than 80 books. Where the Wild Things Are, first published in 1953, is one of the ten best-selling children's books of all time, and it is listed in http://www.publishersweekly.com.
Maurice Sendak is the first American ever to receive the Hans Christian Andersen International Medal for the body of his work. He has illustrated nineteen books of his own, including his classic trilogy, Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen and Outside Over There, as well as The Nutshell Library, Higglety Pigglety Pop, Dear Mili, We are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy and his recently published Swine Lake. He has also illustrated over sixty other books by different authors, including an illustrated version of Melville's novel Pierre, Randall Jarrell's poems and Charlotte Zolotow's books.
He's been called "the Picasso of children's books".
Critical analysis on Maurice Sendak:
Isabelle Nières, "Des illustrations exemplaires : Max et les Maximonstres", Le Français Aujourd'hui, n° 50, juin 1980.
John Cech, Angels and Wild Things? The archétypal Poetics of Maurice Sendak, Pennsylvania State University Press, USA, 1995.
Sendak at the Rosenbach (exhibition catalogue, Rosenbach Museum and Library), Octobre 1995.
Maurice Sendak on the Internet:
About Maurice Sendak - web-interview (in English)
Work of a student at Lille III University (in French)