National Council on the Arts Members

Jerry Pinkney (Croton-on-Hudson, NY)

Jerry Pinkney is an artist who has illustrated more than 80 children's books and 14 novels since 1960. He has had more than 30 one-man retrospective exhibitions of his work at museums ranging from the Art Institute of Chicago to the Omaha Children's Museum to the public libraries of Dallas and San Francisco to the California African American Museum. He has created commemorative stamps for the U.S. Postal Service honoring Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, Scott Joplin, and Sojourner Truth. Other commissions have come from National Geographic magazine, RCA Records, General Electric, the Franklin Mint, and Reader's Digest. Recent illustrated children's books include Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, The Little Match Girl, Uncle Remus, The Ugly Duckling, and Aesop's Fables. Mr. Pinkney is the only artist to have won the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration five times, and five of his works have been named Caldecott Honor Books. Born in Philadelphia, he attended the University of the Arts (formerly Philadelphia College of Art) and has been an art professor at the University of Delaware and Pratt Institute.

National Endowment for the Arts
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