Small Stories of Great Artists by Laurence Anholt
Small Stories of Great Artists by Laurence Anholt
My old mum was an English teacher. One of her favourite poems was Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which is about the dappled quality of nature, and the dappled quality of our lives.
The last two years have been extraordinarily dappled for my family – we celebrated the birth of a granddaughter and the marriage of our son Tom, an artist in Berlin. Then to our dismay his beloved twin Maddy became ill and died of a brain tumour in September 2023. I can’t find the words to say how devastating it has been. Our daughter was a vivacious, beautiful 35-year-old mum, on the cusp of a great career as a writer, performer and educator.
One of the things that kept me going through this dark period was working on this book. Readers and teachers may have come across my self-illustrated picture books about great artists, like Camille and the Sunflowers and Frida Kahlo and the Bravest Girl in the World, which I have worked on for thirty years. One day I got a call from Marlene TASCHEN, CEO of the fabulous German art publishing house, TASCHEN. Marlene had shared my books with her own kids, and she proposed collaborating on a 336-page anthology, to launch TASCHEN’s brand-new children’s list.
How could I refuse? It was a privilege to work with the skilled editors and designers in Cologne, who were deeply sympathetic to what my family were going through. Somehow our loss made me want to work with more love and care than I ever had before.
We called the project Small Stories of Great Artists and together we created fresh layouts, incorporating hundreds of high-quality reproductions of the artists’ works, alongside new features, such as inter-active questionnaires and child-friendly biographies of the artists.
My research led me on some incredible journeys in which I met many descendants and friends of the artists, and I became friends with Sylvette David, Picasso’s Girl with a Ponytail now in her eighties. In each case I visited the artist’s studio and even gained access to Monet’s house in Giverny when it was closed to the public – I wrote my story at Monet’s desk as the sun came up over the waterlily ponds.
I’ll leave it to you to judge, but I could not be more delighted with this book which is translated into several languages. I hope it will be a fabulous resource for libraries, schools, and museum bookshops, as well as a special gift from parents and grandparents. My goal has been to tell inspirational stories about my favourite artists and the real children who knew them – a springboard into a lifetime’s love of art.
Life is dappled indeed. We can’t hold on to anything, but what we can do is pass on our passion for the precious things in life – nature, family, friendship, stories and art. I dedicated my book to my four grandchildren, ‘with a starry night of kisses.’ May it bring joy to them and children everywhere.
Small Stories of Great Artists by Laurence Anholt | ISBN 9783836593564| TASCHEN| Publishing October 2024 | age 5+ | https://www.taschen.com/en/books/art/08067/small-stories-of-great-artists/