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Hudson River Museum opens Witness. The Art of Jerry Pinkney

Hudson River Museum presents Witness.The Art of Jerry Pinkney, an exhibition on view September 29, 2012 – January 13, 2013.


Jerry Pinkney The Owl and Jerusalem, 2009 Hudson River Museum

The Hudson River Museum is the only New York showing for this exhibition on national tour organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. “Jerry Pinkney brings stories to life with and without words but always with the beauty of color and imagery,” said Hudson River Museum Director Michael Botwinick. “We are delighted to offer such a full collection of his work to the whole community and by extension to bring the magic of reading and drawing to the many children we see at the Museum.”

Jerry Pinkney, Philadelphia born and bred in Philadelphia, and now a long-time New Yorker, has illustrated children’s books since 1964. But it was not an easy path. Blacks were not expected to be able to forge careers in the art field. Trained as a commercial artist at a vocational school, he persisted and won a scholarship to the Philadelphia College of Art where his work took on the shading and detail for which he is now renowned and he where he began to use color to convey mood and emotion.

He most often works on children’s books that celebrate multiculturalism and African-American heritage, as he took on the task of reshaping the perceptions of the stereotypes of blacks in the formerly “All White World of Children’s Books.” He designed the first nine stamps of the U. S. Postal Service’s Black Heritage series. Pinkney’s success as an illustrator is due both to his talent as an artist and to the way he depicts the rich heritage of African-Americans but he claims, “Only probably 50 percent of my work depicts my culture. The other works really celebrate other cultures, such as Hans Christian Andersen’s Ugly Duckling or the Little Match Girl or Rudyard Kipling’s Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.

Jerry Pinkney is an award-winning artist who began his creative journey in the field of illustration in 1960. A native of Philadelphia, he studied at the Philadelphia College of Art, began his career as a graphic designer, and has been illustrating children’s books since 1964. His art has appeared in more than one hundred books, garnering well-deserved acclaim. The recipient of a Caldecott Medal, five Caldecott Honor Medals, five Coretta Scott King Awards and four Coretta Scott King Honor Awards, Pinkney has received many commendations for his outstanding body of work, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Illustrators in New York. His illustrated books have been translated into eleven languages and published in fourteen different countries. In addition to his work in children’s books, Pinkney has created illustrations for a wide variety of clients, including the U.S. Postal Service, National Park Service, and National Geographic. He served on the U.S. Postal Services Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee for ten years, from 1982 to 1992, and in 2003, was appointed to the National Endowment for the Arts/NEA, a prestigious position held by the artist for six years. A gifted educator, he has mentored aspiring illustrators at Pratt Institute, the University of Delaware, and the New York State University at Buffalo. The recipient of Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degrees from the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, he has created artworks that are among the collections of The Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Brandywine River Art Museum.

The largest cultural institution in Westchester County, the Hudson River Museum is a multi-disciplinary complex that draws its identity from its site on the banks of the Hudson River, and seeks to broaden the cultural horizons of all its visitors. It engages in the presentation of exhibitions, programs, teaching initiatives, research, collection, preservation, and conservation – a wide range of activities that interpret its collections, interests and communities.

Hudson River Museum, 511 Warburton Avenue, Yonkers, NY. 10701 hrm.org. 914.963.4550.

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