Esphyr Slobodkina, Artist and Author, 93
DGH
Esphyr Slobodkina, a prominent abstract artist better known for her
down-to-earth children's book "Caps for Sale," a tale about a peddler
and a band of mischievous monkeys, died on Sunday, July 21, 2002, at her
home in Glen Head, New York, at the age of 93.
"Caps for Sale" was first published in 1938 and still sells steadily, as
generation after generation of children demands that the cheerfully
repetitive words be read and reread.
In "Caps for Sale," a cap salesman awakes from a nap to find that
monkeys have taken his wares up a tree. He angrily shakes his finger at
them, but they respond by shaking their fingers back and saying "Tsz,
tsz, tsz." No matter what he does, they imitate him. Finally, in
exasperation, the peddler throws down his hat, and the rest is history.
She went on to write and illustrate numerous other books, including "The
Wonderful Feast," (1955), "The Clock" (1956), "The Long Island
Ducklings" (1961) and "Pezzo the Peddler and the Circus Elephant," which
was first published in 1967 and was reissued this year as "Circus Caps
for Sale."
The original "Caps for Sale" has sold more than two million copies since
it was first published, according to Ms. Slobodkina's publisher,
HarperCollins. In sales it ranks with such classics as "Good Night
Moon," though well below books like "Pat the Bunny," "The Cat in the
Hat" or "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," according to lists compiled by
Publisher's Weekly.
Even as Ms. Slobodkina found success in writing and illustrating books,
she continued her paintings, textiles and sculptures. She was a founding
member of a group called the American Abstract Artists, established in
1936 to promote the emerging genre, which included artists like Josef
Albers, Ad Reinhardt, Ilya Bolotowsky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson
Pollock and David Smith.
Her work is represented in numerous collections, including the Whitney
Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery and the Philadelphia Museum
of Art.
Reviewing a retrospective of her work at the Kraushaar Galleries in
Manhattan earlier this year, Grace Glueck wrote in The New York Times
that Ms. Slobodkina's varied works were "all of a creative piece, and a
pleasure to behold."
Esphyr Slobodkina was born in the small Siberian town of Cheliabinsk on
September 22, 1908, and came to America at 20.
She started in children's books by necessity. During the Depression, she
was short on money and worked in her mother's dress shop. A friend
introduced her to Margaret Wise Brown, the author of "Good Night Moon"
at the Bank Street Writers Laboratory in Greenwich Village. Ms.
Slobodkina went on to illustrate several of Brown's other books,
including, "The Little Fireman," "The Little Cowboy" and "Sleepy ABC" .
In a memoir published on her Web site, www.slobodkina.com, Ms.
Slobodkina wrote, "When Margaret died, I was left without a writer, and
since she always insisted that she liked the way I told my stories, I
took a deep breath and began to send them to my agent."
Ms. Slobodkina married Mr. Bolotowsky, a fellow artist, in 1933. They
were divorced three years later. She married William Urquhart in 1960.
He died in 1963.
Her survivors include a sister, Tamara Schildkraut, who lived with her
in Glen Head; a stepdaughter, Charlotte Van Stolk of Cleveland; and
several stepgrandchildren.
Ms. Slobodkina took her responsibility as a children's book author
seriously. In her memoir she wrote: "The verbal patterns and the
patterns of behavior we present to children in these lighthearted
confections are likely to influence them for the rest of their lives.
These aesthetic impressions, just like the moral teachings of early
childhood, remain indelible."