Tasha Tudor was an American children’s book illustrator and writer. Her illustrations are characterized by their delicate lines and pastel colors, depicting an old-fashioned rural life in a sentimental vein. She received numerous awards for illustration, notably including A Tale for Easter, 1 is One (A Caldecott Honor Book), and Mother Goose (A Caldecott Honor Book). Her style can be compared to that of Kate Greenaway.
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1915, the daughter of a yacht designer named William Starling Burgess and an artist mother named Rosamond Tudor.
Her given name was Starling Burgess, after her father. Her father nicknamed her “Natasha,” after the female main character in the Russian novel, “War and Peace,” shortening it to “Tasha.” She eventually changed her legal name to “Tasha Tudor,” adopting her mother’s maiden name as her last name.
Her parents were divorced when she was nine years old, and her mother retained custody of her. However, her mother moved to Greenwich Village, New York to pursue her painting career, sending Tasha to live with family friends in Redding, Connecticut. Tasha grew up there, in a rural setting. Her interests as a child were in playing with dolls, theatre, dance, nature, and country living, and she dreamed of being a farmer. As a teenager, she decided to be an illustrator.
She married a fellow Redding resident, Thomas Leighton McCready, Jr., a real estate agent, in 1938. Living in rural settings in Connecticut and New Hampshire, they had four children. The old farm in New Hampshire where she lived from the 1940’s through the 1970’s had no electricity or running water, and Tasha furnished it with antiques which she purchased through auctions.
She lived as a farmer’s wife in the 1830’s would have lived, washing clothes by hand, weaving, sewing her children’s clothing, and gardening, while illustrating many books and drawing pictures of her children dressed in period clothing. They had many pets and raised many farm animals, some of which appeared in her books. She belonged for many years to a group called “Stillwater,” which attempts to live a 19th-century rural lifestyle.
Tasha illustrated nearly 100 books. Her family runs a cottage industry which includes greeting cards, prints, plates, aprons, dolls, quilts and other items in her style. Her elaborate dollhouses were exhibited in several museums in the 1990s. Her style has also been compared to that of Beatrix Potter.
She died on June 18, 2008, at the age of 92.
Web Sites
- Tasha Tudor and Family
- Wikipedia.com
- International Herald Tribune (Obituary)
- New York Times (Obituary)
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