Artwork: Snowy and Woody…go fishing in the stream and the lake…, illustration design for Snowy and Woody, a story by Roger Duvoisin, 1979.
“He who owns books and loves them is wise,” Roger Duvoisin wrote in Petunia, his fourteenth children’s book first published in 1950, half a century after he was born. The plot centers on Petunia, a goose, who discovers a book in the meadow and carries it around in an effort to acquire wisdom through osmosis. The other animals admire the way she holds herself, and begin to go to her for advice. Thing is—she just a silly goose, much like her hypothesis. Books can’t do anything for you if you never read them.
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Perhaps that’s why Duvoisin made books, 20 in all, which include the introduction of some of the most beloved characters of children’s literature. Check it: There’s Donkey-Donkey, Veronica, and Crocus the Crocodile, each in possession of a very human train, a desire to be a contribution to the group, thus becoming invaluable. Duvoisin was a proponent of manifesting self-esteem through modeling it on the challenges of imaginary characters that enchant kids like nothing else.
The Happy Lioness, book jacket design for a story by Louise Fatio, 1980. Gouache and black ink on illustration board. Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers. Gift of Louise Fatio Duvoisin. Photo Bryan Whitney.
But it was Duvoisin’s illustrations that set him apart, his ability to render a scene with all the wit and whimsy of mid-twentieth century modern aesthetics and thought. It is here that his early years in Paris reveal themselves. Born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1904, Duvoisin got his start devising murals, posters, and stage scenery for the Geneva Opera Company. He later went to Paris where he took in the work of Henri Matisse and Raoul Dufy, carrying it with him to New York in the mid-1920s, where he designed textiles for a silk company.
But it was the Great Depression that altered the course of Duvoisin’s life. Unemployed, he stayed home with his son and created his first children’s book, A Little Boy Was Drawing to amuse his son. Charles Scribner published the book in 1932, introducing Duvoisin’s signature style to the world. A year later Duvoisin authored Donkey-Donkey, which became a bestseller, catapulting Duvoisin into a new career, one that saw him publish his final book, The Happy Lioness, in 1980, the same year he died.
The King at Work, illustration design for A Little Boy Was Drawing, a story by Roger Duvoisin, 1932. Gouache, watercolor and pen and black ink on paper. Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers. Gift of Louise Fatio Duvoisin. Photo Jack Abraham.
In celebration of his life in art, the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers, New Brunswick, NJ, presents Donkey-donkey, Petunia, and Other Pals: Drawings by Roger Duvoisin, on view now through June 26, 2016. The exhibition features 40 artworks spanning Duvoisin’s five-decade career, including images from the 1948 Caldecott Medal winner White Snow, Bright Snow. The works selected reveal the soul that flows through a Duvoisin book, reminding us of the power of books to transform our understanding of ourselves, of the world, and our place in it from a very young age.
Duvoisin observed, “There’s a child in every adult, and when that child dies, it’s a death for the adult too. So I do these books for my own pleasure as much as for the children’s pleasure.” And he does it well, as the exhibition reveals. But perhaps the best part of a Duvoisin book is its devotion to the form, for Petunia’s final lesson speaks to the author’s philosophy as a whole. The goose is no longer a silly lass, but one who appreciates the value of the printed and bound manuscript. Our little girl is growing up, as Petunia says, “Now I understand. It was not enough to carry wisdom under my wing. I must put it in my mind and in my heart. And to do that I must learn to read.”
Petunia, book jacket design for a story by Roger Duvoisin, 1950. Gouache, pen and black ink on paper. Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers. Gift of Louise Fatio Duvoisin. Photo Bryan Whitney.
All artwork ©Roger Duvoisin (American, born in Switzerland, 1904-1980), courtesy of Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
