1. Leo Lionni 1910-1999 – Value/Texture
Leo Lionni was an author and illustrator of children's books. Born in Amsterdam, Netherlands in 1910.

2. Early Years
As a boy, he loved nature and started keeping small creatures--minnows, birds, fish, and more--in his attic room in Amsterdam. He also created terrariums, and many of these natural details found their way into his later work.
As his interest in drawing grew, he was mentored by his Uncle Piet, who was both an architect and an artist. Leo was very lucky to live just a few blocks from two wonderful museums. Further, as a child he had a special pass so he could go there to draw whenever he wished. He learned to draw details from great works--plaster casts of famous statues, and they made such an impression on him that many decades later he could still remember them perfectly, as he could with clarity recall so much about his tiny pets and naturescapes.
Leo’s Uncle Willem was a diamond broker and famous art collector. He traveled a lot, so he stored these amazing paintings with his relatives, including Leo’s family. Leo grew up surrounded by work from some of the most famous avant-garde painters which complemented the more traditional art he saw in the museums.
His father worked as an accountant and when Leo was 12 years old, the family spent two years in Philadelphia before moving to Italy where his father’s firm assigned him to an office there. During this time, his mother was a concert pianist and an opera singer.
Although his education did not include formal art courses, he spent much of his free time as a child in Amsterdam's museums, teaching himself to draw. In fact, he earned a Doctorate in Economics from the University of Genoa in 1935.

3. Graphic design
Lionni's business training gradually receded into the background as his interest in art and design grew. He came under the influence of Futurism art movement (originated in Italy and focused on Speed, Technology, and Youth) through his advertisement work and with the support of F.T. Marinetti, codifier of the Futurism art movement, he was able to exhibit his works throughout Italy. Although he’s said his ultimate design influence was Bauhaus.
Having settled in Milan soon after his marriage to Nora Maffi in 1931 (they met at age 16 and were married for 69 years and she was the daughter of Fabrizio Maffi, a founder of the Italian Communist Party and they had two sons, Louis and Paolo),) to align with the Italian avant-garde movement (non-traditional art, like Cubism, Futurism, Pop Art, Abstract) he started off doing graphic design, by writing about European architecture and doing photography for a local magazine, and advertising. It was there that he met the contacts who were to give him a start as a professional graphic designer.
When he moved to America in 1939, WWII was heating up and Lionni was hired by a Philadelphia advertising agency as art director,at which he was extremely successful, acquiring accounts from Ford Motors and Chrysler Plymouth, among others. He commissioned art from Saul Steinberg, the then neophyte Andy Warhol (for Regal Shoes Account), Alexander Calder, Willem de Kooning, and Fernand Léger. He was a member of the Advertising Art Hall of Fame.
Later he became design director for the Olivetti Corporation of America, producing ads, brochures, and showroom designs, and then art director for Fortune magazine in 1948 where he changed the format and typography creating more pictorial essays. At the same time, his reputation as an artist flourished as he began to exhibit his paintings and drawings in galleries from New York to Japan.
He also maintained outside clients, designing The Family of Man catalogue design for the Museum of Modern Art and designed the American pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair (Expo 58).
Fortune Magazine Cover (August 1951)
Fortune Magazine Cover (October 1953)
Olivetti Ad (1953)

4. AUTHOR
When Lionni was about to turn 50, he decided to move back to Italy where he owned a house and life was less expensive.
Just before he was ready to leave on his new adventure, a remarkable accident took place while he was riding on a commuter train with his grandchildren.
Leo Lionni would usually draw pictures as he told stories to his grandchildren, this trip he had no drawing materials.
To entertain them, he tore little bits of colored papers from Life magazine and made a magical story.
Lionni returned home, he placed what he'd done into a book dummy which was then published into Little Blue and Little Yellow (1959). His first book for children.

5. Leo Lionni would go on to write and illustrate more than 40 highly acclaimed children's books. He received the 1984 American Institute of Graphic Arts Gold Medal and was a four-time (record) Caldecott Honor Winner for Inch by Inch (1961), Frederick (1968), Swimmy (1964), and Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse (1970).
Lionni became the first children's author/illustrator to use collage as the main medium for his illustrations.
His innovative use of collage, white space, and clean, modern design was a major influence on Eric Carle and other children’s book artists. So it makes sense that his illustrations have been compared to those of Eric Carle as both employ animals, birds, insects, and other creatures to tell a story about what it is to be human.
His illustrations are vibrant and colorful using a collage technique to make pictures interesting, fresh, and appealing to kids.
He always centered around a character who was different, but special and the issues of community and creativity in his books. Many of his stories are fables, teaching a moral lesson-often in cooperation or cleverness or the importance of things not always valued.
For Lionni, the children's book was an organic synthesis of all his talents, beliefs and obsessions, wedding as it does his artistic sense of humor, color, and abstraction with the desire to teach.
Leo saw his role as an artists as seeing FOR people and an opportunity to use picture books to convey social messages.

6. Lionni used straight collage, collage and oil stick, graphite and collage, and colored pencil with an oil stick. In his collages, he used cut-outs, finger paints, and construction paper scraps to help him create vivid illustrations for his books. Lionni would “tear” paper to create a furry effect. The use of collage creates texture that makes the reader really want to touch the pictures.
He always used a white background for his art to stand out except for the book, The Greentail Mouse.
Mice are consistently found as characters in Lionni's books, such as the star character in Frederick and the title character in the Caldecott Honor Book Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse.
Images:
Frederick (1968)

7. Lionni also used earth tones in his illustrations that are close to the actual colors of the objects found in nature.
In his book Inch by Inch, for example, he uses realistic shades of brown and burnt orange in his collage of a robin, while the tree branches are shades of brown with dark green leaves.
Images:
Inch by Inch (1960)

8. Images: Fish is Fish (1970)
Texture, another element of art, is used to describe either the way a three-dimensional work actually feels when touched, or the visual feel, appearance, or consistency of a surface or substance of a two-dimensional work.

9. Sculpture
The Imaginary Garden Sculpture (Bronze, 1978, now at Eric Carle Museum)
In The Imaginary Garden Sculpture, made of 37 pieces Lionni cast this bronze garden of strange flora, which was derived from his imagination. In 1977, he published ”Parallel Botany,“ a satiric documentary account of his bizarre botanical discoveries.

10. Three Moon Flowers (Venice)
No. 1 of 6 Sculpture the "Giraluna" from Parallel Botany book (1970s)
Giraluna Sketch from “Parallel Botany”

11. Lionni always thought of himself as an artist
Lionni always thought of himself as an artist. He worked in many disciplines including, drawing, painting, sculpture, and photography and had one-man shows in the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
He continued to work as an artist and participated in workshops with children until just before his death in 1999 at his home in Tuscany Italy at the age of 89 after living with Parkinson’s Disease for 15 years.
Even after his death, school children continue to honor him by making their own versions of his books or replicating his style of art.

12. Leo Lionni 1910-1999 – Value/Texture
MOVEMENT:
Futurism
Avant-Garde
MEDIA:
Paint
Pencil
Graphic Design
Sculpture
INSPIRATION:
Art Museums
Nature
FAMOUS FOR:
Children’s Books
Fortune Magazine Cover (August 1951)
Frederick (1968)
The Imaginary Garden Sculpture (Bronze, 1978, now at Eric Carle Museum)
Born in Netherlands, moved to Italy and was respected artist before moving to US in 1939 to study economics and do advertising design. Art director for ad agencies, Ford, Chrysler, and Fortune magazine. Commissioned art from Calder, Warhol.
Returned to Italy in 1962 where he started writing/illustrating children’s books.
Sources:
Graphic Designer
Author
Sculptor
Guggenheim museum
“The fact is that I don't make books for children at all. I make them for that part of us, of myself and of my friends, which has never changed, which is still a child.”

13. Art Elements