Virginia Lee Burton (born August 30, 1909, in Newton Centre, Massachusetts, died October 15, 1968) was an American illustrator and children's book author. Burton produced seven self-illustrated children's books.
Books by Burton
Mike Mulligan is Burton's best-known work
I did for both Aris and Mike [her children] in an attempt to wean them away from comic books.
was based on our own little house which we moved from the street into 'a field of daises with apple trees growing around.
the story of our Gloucester Highway Department.
was made in memory of my school days in San Francisco.
This book took me eight years to complete. The research from books--museums of natural history--and direct observation from life was an education in itself.
- Mike Mulligan and More: Four Classic Stories by Virginia Lee Burton, 2002, omnibus volume ISBN 0-618-25627-X
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"I was born on August 30, 1909, in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. My mother was English, a poet and a musician. My father was the dearly beloved Dean Burton of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology . . . their first dean and only dean until he retired in 1921.
My memories of early childhood in Newton Corner consist of English folk songs and English folk dancing around a Maypole . . . celebrating Twelfth Night when everyone dressed up in costumes and the neighbors came in to sing and dance and "wassail" the old apple trees. On other holidays our parents put on marionette shows for us and our friends. Our old barn was converted into a school, and I believe the first Montessori System in this country was taught there. Dad, instead of giving us toys for birthdays and Christmas, gave us beautifully illustrated children's books, which he would read aloud to us. I am sure my interest in picture books stemmed from this.
We lived in Newton Corner until I was about eight. The New England winters were getting to be too much for my mother's health, and as it was about time for my father to retire, we moved to California. We stayed one year in San Diego and then moved up the coast to Carmel-by-the-Sea. Carmel was then a simple unspoiled small town inhabited by retired and semi-retired artists, writers, and musicians. There were three theaters and a little old two-room schoolhouse. Always there was a play or an operetta in rehearsal going on and everybody took part. To be sure it was all amateur, but it was a lot of fun. My sister and I loved dancing and studied at every opportunity (of which there were many) and appeared in the local productions.
When I was sixteen and a junior in high school, where there was a good art teacher, I happened to win a state scholarship to the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco. In my senior year I was editor of the school annual and, on the side, started a dancing class of my own.
Having no desire to go to college, I thought I might as well go to art school and continue studying dancing with a good ballet teacher in San Francisco, which I did. I lived across the Bay in Alameda with my school friend, Mabel, who also had a scholarship. There were no bridges in those days, and it took us at least two hours by train, ferry boat and cable car to get to school, and sometimes longer when it was foggy. I mention this because I used those long commuting hours to rain myself in making quick sketches from life and from memory of my unaware fellow passengers.
In 1928 after a year at art school I returned east to join my father in Boston. My sister had already started her dancing career on the stage in New York. There was a chance for me to join her troupe, and I had even signed the contract when my father broke his leg, so I stayed home to take care of him . . . and that was the beginning and end of my dancing career, which was just as well, because I wasn't very good anyway
However, my practice in sketching on the San Francisco ferry led to a job as 'sketcher' on the now extinct Boston Transcript working under H. T. P, famous drama and music critic. In my two-and-a-half years at the Transcript, I was able to see and draw the good and great dancers and actors of that time. I signed my sketches 'VleeB.'
In the meantime I had been a lifesaver and swimming instructor, taught art at a newsboys' foundation where my father was the director and been an art counselor in a YMCA summer camp.
Through mutual friends I had heard of George Demetrios and what a great teacher of sculpture and drawing he was, so in the fall of 1930 when I was twenty-one, I enrolled in his Saturday morning drawing class at the Boston Museum School. In the spring we were married. We lived in Lincoln, Massachusetts, for a year where our first son, Aris, short for Aristedes, was born, then moved to Folly Cove, Gloucester, 1932, where we have lived ever since. Our second son,Michael, was born in 1935, coincidentally on my birthday. The last act in my book, Life Story, tells the story of our life here in Folly Cove.
Choo Choo is not my first book. My first book, Jonnifer Lint, was about a piece of dust. I and my friends thought it was very clever but thirteen publishers disagreed with us and when I finally got the manuscript back and read it to Aris, age three and a half he went to sleep before I could even finish it. That taught me a lesson and from then on I worked with and for my audience, my own children. I would tell them the story over and over, watching their reaction and adjusting to their interest or lack of interest . . .the same with the drawings. Children are very frank critics.
My subject material, with a few exceptions such as Calico the Wonder Horse, comes directly from life. I literally draw my books first and write the texts after - sort of "cart before the horse." I pin the sketched pages in sequence on the walls of my studio so I can see the book as a whole. Then I make a rough dummy and then the final drawings and, when I can put it off no longer, I type out the text and paste it in the dummy. Whenever I can, I substitute picture for word. Each new book is a new experience, not only in subject material and research, but also in learning a new medium and technique for the drawings."
- Virginia Lee Burton from a publisher's press release.
Illustrated by Burton
- The Emperor's New Clothes, Hans Christian Andersen, 1973. ISBN 0-618-34420-9
- The Song of Robin Hood, stories compiled by Anne Malcolmson, adaptation for musical scores Grace Castagnetta, © 1947. ISBN 0-618-07186-5
- LA Casita by Virginia Lee Burton, Maria Elena Herrera, 1994. ISBN 970-629-050-8
- Fast Sooner Hound, Arna Bontemps and Jack Conroy, 1975. ISBN 0-395-18657-9
- Sad-Faced Boy, Arna Bontemps, © 1937. ISBN 0-395-06643-3
- Don Quixote, presumably Miguel de Cervantes, (edition unknown; Burton cited as illustrator by Monterey Peninsula Herald, Monterey, CA, October 20, 1949.) Resources
- Virginia Lee Burton: A Life in Art, by Barbara Elleman, 2002, ISBN 0-618-00342-8
- Virginia Lee Burton: A Sense of Place, a documentary film narrated by Lindsay Crouse, had its world premiere at the Cape Ann Historical Museum on December 8, 2007. The film is produced by Christine Lundberg of Red Dory Productions, Gloucester MA in partnership with filmmaker Rawn Fulton of Searchlight Films, Bernardston MA, with music composed by Steven Schoenberg of Quabbin Music, New Salem MA. It had its initial broadcast on WGBH, Boston Channel 44) on December 30, 2007 at 7 p.m.[1]. For more information, visit www.virginialeeburton.com
Content
Virginia Lee Burton's books are notable for their swirling, stylized illustrations and her stories concerning technological change. Characters are apt to be buildings or machines. See also
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