Acclaimed American artist Jerry Pinkney was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 22, 1939. He began drawing as a four-year-old child, studied commercial art at the Dobbins Vocational School, and received a full scholarship to the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. After graduating, Pinkney worked in design and illustrations, helped found Kaleidoscope Studios, and later opened the Jerry Pinkney Studio. Pinkney is well-known as a children's book illustrator and has created the art for over one hundred titles, including Julius Lester's John Henry, Sam and the Tigers, and The Old African, plus adaptations of Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Match Girl and The Nightingale. He has won five Caldecott Honor Medals, five Coretta Scott King Awards, four Coretta Scott King Honor Awards, four New York Times Best Illustrated Book awards, the Hamilton King Award, and many others. He received the Virginia Hamilton Literary award from Kent State University in 2000, the University of Southern Mississippi Medallion in 2004, and the Original Art's Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Illustrators in 2006. Pinkney was awarded the 2009 Caldecott Medal. In addition to holding numerous one-man retrospectives and exhibiting his work in more than one hundred international group shows, Pinkney's art resides in the permanent collections of the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Brandywine River Art Museum. He has taught art at the Pratt Institute, the University of Delaware, and the University of Buffalo.
BRIAN PINKNEY is a celebrated picture-book illustrator who has won two Caldecott Honors. His many professional tributes also include the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award and three Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honors. He has collaborated with his wife, author Andrea Davis Pinkney, on several picture books including Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra and Sleeping Cutie. The Pinkneys live in Brooklyn, New York.
Dinah Johnson is the author of "Quinnie Blue," illustrated by James Ransome; "Sunday Week," illustrated by Tyrone Geter; and "All Around Town," an NCSS-CBC Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. A professor of English and children's literature at the University of South Carolina, Ms. Johnson lives with her daughter, Niani, in Columbia, South Carolina.
Myles C. Pinkney is the photographer of several children's books, including "It's Raining Laughter" by Nikki Grimes. Mr. Pinkney says of his experience working on "Sitting Pretty," "It was amazing to see how each doll took on a personality of its own." An acclaimed photographer whose work is exhibited around the country, Mr. Pinkney lives in Poughkeepsie, New York, with his family.
