Feature
Tomie dePaola: Then and Now by Kimberly Swick Slover
Illustration of Gertrude’s Salon from Bonjour, Mr. Satie.
When Tomie dePaola was four years old, his Italian relatives asked him and his older brother, Joseph, what they wanted to be when they grew up. Joseph said he wanted to be Dick Tracey, Joe Palooka and Buck Rogers, but Tomie
Tomie dePaola’s Irish-American mother and Italian-American father made sure he had art supplies, and his maternal grandfather, a butcher, gave him big rolls of butcher paper to draw on. He drew everywhere, behind the wallpaper in his bedroom and even on his sheets. 36
responded with certainty, “I’m going to be an artist. I’m going to write stories and draw pictures for books, and I’m going to sing and tap dance on the stage.” Seventy-five years later, Tomie dePaola is one of the world’s most prolific and popular children’s authors and illustrators. He has published nearly 250 books and sold some 15 million copies, as well as won many of the genre’s prestigious awards. As dePaola relaxes in his orderly studio in an old converted barn in New London, N.H., surrounded by his artwork, children’s books and eclectic folk art collections, he revels in his good fortune. “I’m going to be 80 next year, and I’ve done all those things and been paid
Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
for them!” dePaola says, breaking into raucous laughter. “I never changed my mind about the whole art thing.” Colby-Sawyer College will celebrate his life’s work in two exhibitions at the Sawyer Fine and Performing Arts Center, “Tomie dePaola: Then and Now.” The “Then” exhibition this fall will feature his early drawings, paintings and books, along with images of his costume and set designs, from the late 1940s until the mid-1970s. In fall 2014, the “Now” show will coincide with his 80th birthday and highlight his career from 1975 to the present with fine art and book illustrations. “I’d like to show people, especially students, how I started out in high school
and what I’m doing now. A lot of people don’t know I can draw realistically from the figure,” dePaola says. “Now that I’m reaching the end of my journey, I’d like to show off all of my work and let people make up their own minds.” dePaola’s connection to the college began in 1959 when his friend, Eugene Youngken, the new Sawyer Center’s first theater director, invited him to create the sets and perform in the center’s first production, Thornton Wilder’s “The Matchmaker.” He returned as a faculty member from 1972 to 1975, a time he recalls as the college’s golden age of theater when dozens of theater and dance majors lit up the stage. dePaola taught classes in theater production,