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Great science fiction art harlan ellison dangerous visions leo and diane dillon
Leo Dillon (March 2, 1933 – May 26, 2012) and Diane Dillon (née Sorber; born March 13, 1933) were American illustrators of children's books and adult paperback book and magazine covers. One obituary of Leo called the work of the husband-and-wife team "a seamless amalgam of both their hands". In more than 50 years they created more than 100 speculative fiction book and magazine covers together as well as much interior artwork. Essentially all of their work in that field was joint.
The Dillons won the Caldecott Medal in 1976 and 1977, the only consecutive awards of the premier honor in U.S. picture book illustration. In 1978 they were the highly commended runners-up for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's illustrators; they were the U.S. nominee again in 1996.
Rap a tap tap by leo and diane dillon
Biography
Leo Dillon, of Trinidadian immigrant parentage, was born and raised in East New York, and Diane Sorber hails from the Greater Los Angeles Area. Leo enlisted in the Navy for three years' service so that he could attend art school. The couple met at the Parsons School of Design in New York City in 1953 — where they "became instant archrivals and remained together from then on". They graduated in 1956 and married the next year. An association with writer Harlan Ellison led to jobs doing book covers for his short story collections and both cover and interior woodcut illustration for his anthology Dangerous Visions. They illustrated a large number of mass market paperback book covers for the original Ace Science Fiction Specials, for which they won their first major award, science fiction's 1971 Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist. A detailed biography and introduction to their work and styles was written by Byron Preiss in a book he edited in 1981, entitled The Art of Leo & Diane Dillon. They once described their work as incorporating motifs derived from their respective heritages.
On May 28, 2012, Ellison reported on his website his reception of a phone call from Diane announcing Leo's death at the age of 79 from lung cancer two days prior. Spectrum Fantastic Art, an annual art competition and art book project of which the couple were general managers, confirmed Leo's death on its website. The obituary of Leo in The New York Times praised the Dillons jointly as "one of the world's pre-eminent illustrators for young people, producing artwork — praised for its vibrancy, ecumenicalism and sheer sumptuous beauty — that was a seamless amalgam of both their hands", also noting the ethnoracial diversity of characters in the Dillons' work in the 1970s, "until then, the smiling faces portrayed in picture books had been overwhelmingly white."
The Dillons had one surviving son. Lee (Lionel John Dillon III), born 1965, became an artist and collaborated with his parents several times, including the illustrations for Pish, Posh, Said Hieronymus Bosch by Nancy Willard (1991). Both Leo and Diane lived in the Cobble Hill neighborhood at the time of Leo's death.
Picture books illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon
1970 The Ring in the Prairie, written by John Bierhorst / Dial Press
1977 Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions, Margaret Musgrove / Dial Press
1977 Who's in Rabbit's House: A Masai Tai, Verna Aardema / Dial Press
1980 Two Pair of Shoes, P. L. Travers / Viking Press
1980 Children of the Sun, Jan R. Carew / Little Brown
1985 Brother to the Wind, Mildred Pitts Walter / Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
1986 All in a Day, Mitsumasa Anno and Raymond Briggs / Hamish Hamilton (London) (Translation of: Marui chiky¯u no maru ichinichi.) —illustrations by 10 artists, including the Dillons
2002 Rap a Tap Tap: Here's Bojangles—Think of That, written and illustrated by the Dillons / Scholastic/Blue Sky Press
2003 One Winter's Night, John Herman / Philomel
2004 Where Have You Been?, Margaret Wise Brown / HarperCollins
2005 The People Could Fly - The Picture Book
2005 Earth Mother, Ellen B. Jackson / Walker & Company
2006 Whirlwind is a Spirit Dancing, Natalia Maree Belting and Joseph Bruchac / Milk & Cookies Press —illustrations reprinted from 1974 title, Whirlwind is a Ghost Dancing