Anthony (Edward Tudor) Browne (1946-) Biography

Born 1946, in Sheffield, England; Education: Leeds College of Art, B.A. (with honors), 1967. Hobbies and other interests: Reading, music, theater, films, swimming, tennis, squash, cricket.

Anthony Browne

Career

Victoria University of Manchester, Manchester, England, medical artist at Royal Infirmary, 1968-70; Gordon Fraser Greeting Cards, London, England, designer, 1971-88; author and illustrator of children's books, 1975—. Writer and illustrator-in-residence, Tate Britain Gallery, London, 2001-02. Has also held two teaching positions. Exhibitions: Illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland were exhibited at Barbican Gallery, London, England, 1988; work exhibited in Mexico, 1994.

Honors Awards

Kate Greenaway Medal commendation, British Library Association, 1982, and International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) Award for Illustration in Great Britain, 1984, both for Hansel and Gretel; Kate Greenaway Medal, and Kurt Maschler/"Emil" Award, British Book Trust, 1983, New York Times best illustrated children's books of the year citation, 1985, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book for illustration, 1986, Child Study Association of America Children's Books of the Year citation, 1986, Horn Book Honor List, 1986, and 1989, and Silver Pencil Award (Netherlands), 1989, all for Gorilla; Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis (German Youth Literature Prize; with Annalena McAfee), and Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, National Council for Social Studies/Children's Book Council, both 1985, both for The Visitors Who Came to Stay; Parents' Choice Award, Parents' Choice Foundation, for Piggybook, 1987, and 1988, for Look What I've Got!; Kate Greenaway Medal, highly commended, 1988, Kurt Maschler/"Emil" Award, and Parents' Choice Award, both 1989, all for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland; Silver Pencil Award, 1989, for The Tunnel; Kate Greenaway Medal, 1992, for Zoo; silver medal, Society of Illustrators, 1995, for King Kong; Kurt Maschler Award, Best Books designation, Publishers Weekly, and Best Books designation, School Library Journal, all 1998, Fanfare list, Horn Book, and Notable Books for Children designation, American Library Association, both 1999, all for Voices in the Park; Hans Christian Andersen Illustration Award, 2000, for body of work.

Writings

"BEAR" SERIES; SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Bear Hunt, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1979, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1980.

Bear Goes to Town, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1982, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989.

The Little Bear Book, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1988, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1989.

A Bear-y Tale, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1989.

"WILLY" SERIES; SELF-ILLUSTRATED

Willy the Wimp, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1984, reprinted, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

Willy the Champ, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1985.

Willy and Hugh, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1991, reprinted, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

Willy the Wizard, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1995.

Willy the Dreamer, Walker (London, England), 1997, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

Willy's Pictures, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2000.

RETELLINGS

(Adaptor) Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Hansel and Gretel, MacRae (London, England), 1981, Franklin Watts (New York, NY), 1982.

(Story conceived by Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper) King Kong, Turner Publishing (Atlanta, GA), 1994, published as Anthony Browne's King Kong, MacRae (London, England), 1994.

PICTURE BOOKS

Through the Magic Mirror, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1976, Greenwillow Books (New York, NY), 1977, reprinted, 1992.

A Walk in the Park, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1977, revised edition, Doubleday (London, England), 1990, published as Voices in the Park, DK Ink (New York, NY), 1998.

Look What I've Got!, MacRae (London, England), 1980, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1988.

Gorilla, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1983, revised edition, 1991

Piggybook, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1986.

I Like Books, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

Things I Like, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1989, reprinted, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

The Tunnel, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1989.

Changes, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

Zoo, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1992, reprinted, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2002.

The Big Baby: A Little Joke, MacRae (London, England), 1993, Knopf (New York, NY), 1994.

My Dad, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2001.

Animal Fair, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

The Shape Game, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2003.

Into the Forest, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2004.

My Mom, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2005.

ILLUSTRATOR; FICTION, EXCEPT AS NOTED

Annalena McAfee, The Visitors Who Came to Stay, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1984, Viking (New York, NY), 1985.

Sally Grindley, Knock, Knock! Who's There?, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 1985, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1986.

Annalena McAfee, Kirsty Knows Best, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1987.

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1988.

Gwen Strauss, Trail of Stones (young adult poems), Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1990.

Gwen Strauss, The Night Shimmy, Alfred A. Knopf (New York, NY), 1992.

Ian McEwan, The Daydreamers, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 1994.

Janni Howker, The Topiary Garden, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 1995.

Browne's works have been translated into numerous languages, including Spanish, Welsh, French, Italian, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish, and Danish.

Adaptations

Bear Hunt was adapted as a filmstrip by Weston Woods, 1981.

Sidelights

Anthony Browne is an English author, illustrator, and reteller who is acclaimed as a gifted artist and incisive social critic whose works have helped to define the modern picture book. Browne has been called "one of the most original and accomplished of our picture book artists" by Chris Powling in Books for Keeps and "one of the most highly original creators of picture books to arrive on the scene in recent years" by Amy J. Meeker in Children's Books and Their Creators. Celebrated for creating unconventional, often provocative works that challenge and delight both young readers and adults, Browne uses spare texts and symbolic pictures filled with surrealistic details and humorous visual puns to address serious themes about personal relationships, social conventions, human behavior, and the thin line between perception and reality. His artistic style is a highly individualistic, intensely personal approach that combines fantastic and representational imagery in a precise, meticulous technique. It is noted for its bold, rich colors; use of animals to represent humans, especially gorillas and chimpanzees; and references to popular culture, to literary characters, to his own work, and to artists such as Salvador Dali, Leonardo da Vinci, and Edvard Munch.

Browne is perhaps best known as the creator of Gorilla, a picture book that features a lonely girl infatuated with apes who, after receiving a toy gorilla from her often absent father, dreams that it turns into a real animal. Browne has also written and illustrated two popular series of picture books—the first about Willy, an ingenuous chimp, and the second about Bear, a jaunty teddy who averts danger with the aid of his magic pencil. In addition, he has retold the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel and the story of the film King Kong and has illustrated the works of such authors as Lewis Carroll, Janni Howker, Ian McEwan, Annalena McAfee, and Gwen Strauss in a style that features his familiar motifs.

As a writer, Browne often uses the formats of the folk-tale, fairy tale, and cautionary tale as the framework for stories that depict humans and anthropomorphic animals who use their imaginations and interior strength to affect their personal situations. Browne's characters face loneliness, neglect, boredom, jealousy, ridicule, and social differences with spirit and resourcefulness, and the author presents his readers with subtle messages about being true to oneself and reaching out to others. Praised for his sensitivity to the needs and concerns of children, Browne has also developed a reputation as a sharp social observer. Several of his books skewer contemporary adult behavior—especially that of males—by showing how foolishness, cruelty, and self-absorption bring out the baseness of our animal natures.

As an artist, Browne uses color and pattern to define the symbolism of his pictures, detailed, hyper-realistic paintings set against white backgrounds. His art is often credited with helping readers to view the world in a new way. In his depiction of the inner nature of things, Browne includes some details that are considered disturbing, a factor for which he has been criticized. In addition, his books are sometimes considered too clever and sophisticated for children. However, most reviewers view Browne as a writer and artist of great talent and singular vision whose works contain emotional depth and foster powerful responses. A critic in Kirkus Reviews noted that Browne's picture books "comment on the human condition with perception and originality," while Jane Doonan, in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, claimed that he "has given a large audience (of all ages) consistently interesting work that, at every level, contains something to be enjoyed, discovered, and considered." Writing in Magpies, Browne's longtime editor Julia MacRae said that he "is truly an artist who opens our minds—and our hearts."

Browne was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, in the north of England, to pub owners Jack and Doris May Browne. In an interview in Something about the Author ( SATA ), Browne recalled, "Books were a huge part of our lives. We had annuals, The Beano Annual or The Dandy Annual, that sort of thing. And fairy stories, particularly Hansel and Gretel. I do remember Alice in Wonderland, which must have been read to me. Perhaps I have better recall of the Tenniel pictures than the story." When he was a child, Browne wanted to be a boxer like his father had been, and then a newspaper reporter. "I suppose what I really wanted was to be like my dad—a big, powerfully built man, and I was always a small boy," he mused.

Both Browne's father and brother Michael had artistic talent. The author recalled in SATA that they would draw "a British and a German soldier, for instance, with all the details of uniforms and guns. I, on the other hand, would draw battle scenes with jokes thrown in—a decapitated head speaking or a picture of an invisible man. Knights on horseback and cowboys and Indians shared the same battle. Looking back I see that my pictures took on a narrative form." On occasion, Browne would stand on a table in the tap room of his parents' pub and tell stories to the patrons. One of these tales featured a Superman-like hero called Big Dumb Tackle. Browne recalled in SATA, "My mother told me that in one of my stories Big Dumb Tackle went to heaven and knocked on the door of heaven and said, 'Can Jesus come out to play?' I shudder to think what the answer might have been!"

Recalling his childhood to SATA, Browne described himself as "a kid with terrors—people coming after me, things under the bed, in the wardrobe.… Looking back, I was quite the wimp." (In 1984, Browne published Willy the Wimp, the story of a skinny, refined young chimp who triumphs over his gorilla tormentors.) By the age of five, Browne was learning Latin at a local private school. When he was seven, Browne and his family moved to Wyke, near Bradford, a tough industrial area. This relocation proved particularly difficult for the small boy who enjoyed drawing and writing as much as rambunctious outdoor games. Throughout his school years, Browne continued drawing, mostly detailed sketches of battles based on the comic books he read. He was also learning to appreciate literature. His most memorable teacher, Browne recalled in SATA, "introduced me to the work of Beckett and Pinter. Encountering Beckett was a bit like discovering surrealism in painting—something at once totally unexpected and yet deeply familiar. It struck a chord, because I seemed to recognize something in it."

At age sixteen, Browne announced that he wanted to go straight from high school to art college. His family agreed. During Browne's first year as a graphic design major at Leeds College of Art, his father passed away, suffering a fatal heart attack right before his son's eyes. The author recalled in SATA, "It was terrible. His two previous massive heart attacks should have prepared me, but I didn't take in the significance of that." When asked by Chris Powling in Books for Keeps if he is, to some extent, fulfilling his father's ambition to become an artist, Browne replied, "It's not something I think about but I suppose in a way, yes. If he'd been given the opportunities I had, I'm pretty sure he'd have done something very similar." Browne's picture book My Dad pays loving homage to his father.

After two years as a medical artist, Browne felt that he needed to stretch his imagination, so he began creating a collection of greeting cards while working in an ad agency. He sent his cards to Gordon Fraser, a large greeting card company in London, and shortly thereafter began a long career there as a card artist. Through his company's founder, Browne was introduced to the world of children's books. He recalled in SATA, "I began thinking about books, because cards weren't a proper living, really." Hamish Hamilton published Browne's first book, Through the Magic Mirror, in 1976. A picture book in which young Toby—bored in the house—enters a fantastic world through a looking glass before returning home, Through the Magic Mirror is noted for introducing the stylistic touches that would later become the hallmarks of Browne's work. Writing in Horn Book, Aidan Chambers noted that the book "firmly announces in an uncompromising way that Browne intends to bring into children's books some of the twentieth-century art which has often been thought too difficult for children to understand."

His next work, A Walk in the Park, was published in 1977 in England and appeared in the United States as Voices in the Park in 1998, featuring different illustrations. In this picture book, working-class Smudge and her father take their dog to the park, where they meet middle-class Charles, his mother, and their pedigreed dog. The children and the dogs play together happily while the parents ignore each other. In Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, Jane Doonan wrote that "Smudge and Charles are accompanied by a yob and a snob, but win for themselves a spell of perfect happiness." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly, assessing the American edition, noted that "Browne again proves himself an artist of inventive voice and vision as he creates perhaps his most psychologically complex work to date."

In 1980, Browne married violin teacher Jane Franklin; the couple have two children, Joseph and Ellen. In 1981, Browne published his retelling of the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, a work that is often considered a creative breakthrough as well as one of the artist's most controversial titles. Rather than presenting the tale as a period piece, Browne sets his illustrations in the present day and uses them to reflect the subconscious of young children. Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, Tanya Harrod observed, "What … do we make of this contemporary stepmother's squalid dressing table with lipsticks, talcum powder and cigarette ends lovingly depicted by Anthony Browne? Is her taste for fake furs and stiletto heels the cause of the family's poverty? Why have the Social Services let them slip through the net? I really cannot envision buying any child this book." In her Signal review, Jane Doonan claimed, "Without question, Anthony Browne's pictures supply a piece of visual storytelling, a psychological commentary, which interprets the folktale in a positive way.… Browne's visual interpretation of Hansel and Gretel offers children a chance to recognize the nature of their deeper and truer feelings."

Two years after the publication of Hansel and Gretel, Browne created Gorilla. In this work, small Hannah longs both for a gorilla and for the attention of her father. After she dreams that her stuffed toy is transformed into a huge ape that dons her father's hat and coat and takes her to the zoo and to the movies, her real father actually takes her to the zoo. A reviewer in the Junior Bookshelf commented that the book's detail "will yield more each time to the reader—it is brilliantly worked out," while Kenneth Marantz commented in Horn Book: "Despite the fantasy, Browne has created a picture book that explores real emotions with a beautifully realized child protagonist. Using his artistic skills, he's fashioned the visual metaphors that help to transcend superficial meanings and feel the power of the more archetypal emotions that bind children to parents and people to the other animals." In her Magpies article, Julia MacRae wrote, "Gorilla speaks individually to each reader and always will."

In 1983 Browne won his first Greenaway Medal as well as Germany's Kurt Maschler Award for Gorilla, which also won the Silver Pencil Award from the Netherlands in 1989. The author has noted that Gorilla had its origin in a greeting card that he did for Gordon Fraser; the card depicted a big male gorilla holding a teddy bear. In his interview in SATA, Browne said, "I think the image goes back to my father, who in some ways was like a gorilla, big and potentially aggressive during his pub days." The author added, "I must confess that [ Gorilla ] has changed my life."

Following the success of Gorilla, Browne continued his fascination with simian characters with his series about Willy, a chimp who lives in a world dominated by gorillas. A critic in Publishers Weekly described Willy, who has prompted more letters from children than any of Browne's other characters, as "an earnest and endearing youngster, often lonely and sometimes bullied, but who wins out thanks to perseverance and pluck." In Willy's Pictures, for instance, the versatile chimp draws his own versions of great art masterpieces such as Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" and Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." Needless to say, filtered through Willy's imagination, the masterpieces become subtly overrun with chimp-inspired imagery such as bananas and tropical foliage. The wily Willy also mixes and matches, adding elements of one great artist's work to the masterpiece of another. Browne described Willy's Pictures in School Library Journal as just one of the books he has done to encourage children "to look at paintings with a fresh eye, and see that most paintings do have a story." Speaking generally of Willy, a Publishers Weekly critic described him as an "ingenuous, remarkably human chimp" who "delivers a beneficial message to all youngsters."

In 1986, Browne also wrote and illustrated Piggybook, a picture book that is often considered among his best works. Piggybook features Mrs. Piggott, a harried wife and mother in a male-dominated family who is tired of doing all of the housework in addition to her other job. Her husband and sons, sloppy and demanding, infuriate Mrs. Piggott to the point that she shouts "You are pigs!" before storming out of the house. In her absence, the men become pink pigs. Before Mrs. Piggott returns and order is restored, they discover the joys of a clean home. Challenging male chauvinism and sexual stereotyping, Piggybook is acknowledged for its humorous but pointed examination of male and female roles. Kathleen Brachmann, writing in School Library Journal, called it a "wickedly feminist tale if ever there was one" and added that in "terms of cleverness and style, this one brings home the bacon." Doonan noted in the Times Literary Supplement that, "Both funny and disturbing, Browne achieves a fine balance between the humour of the fantastic imagery and the seriousness of his message."

In the mid-1980s, editor MacRae made the suggestion, the author once told SATA, "that I should break away and make a big change. She suggested a number of classics, among them Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. 'After Tenniel,' I thought, 'who am I to even attempt.' But the story seeped into my consciousness." Browne published his illustrated version of Lewis Carroll's book in 1988, and his pictures are noted for their imagination, detail, and humor as well as for reflecting the surreal quality of the text. However, as with Hansel and Gretel, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland received a mixed critical reception. Marcus Crouch in Junior Bookshelf called the artist's pictures "intellectually rather than emotionally satisfying" while Frances Spaulding in the Times Literary Supplement noted that Browne's illustrations "are freshly imagined but overloaded. In trying to dislodge Tenniel he offers intensely detailed renderings of scenes that far exceed the text." In contrast, Ann A. Flowers stated in Horn Book, "Browne's illustrations certainly add a new and suggestive dimension to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and even extend the story." Bernard Ashley in Books for Keeps likewise called Browne's version of Alice "a marvelous way for Juniors to drink from the labelled bottle.…The Junior mind may not understand Browne's allusions all the time any more than it will understand Carroll's, but it will be somehow aware of being in the presence of an artist it will never forget."

Browne won his second Greenaway Medal for Zoo, a picture book in which the doltish behavior of a family of zoo visitors is juxtaposed against the dignity of the caged animals. At the end of the family's visit—in which boorish dad and his impatient sons behave insensitively—the mother, who alone feels some sympathy for the animals, says, "I don't think the zoo's really for animals. I think it's for people." Browne's illustrations reflect this sentiment—paintings on opposite pages balance the family's actions with the zoo's animals and settings. Other visitors to the zoo are pictured sporting flippers and tails beneath their clothes. Writing in Booklist, Stephanie Zvirin noted that "Browne is just as sly as ever. Here … he brings the surreal and the real together to give us a world transformed. This time, however, he challenges us to examine not only the things we take for granted, but also the way we are." Writing in School Librarian, Griselda Greaves commented that "Browne's propaganda is unsubtle. The suitability of much of his work for the young is questionable, because it seems to express such distaste for humanity that no redemption is possible. Those who like Browne's work will find all they have come to expect in this book, but there is nothing new here." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly concluded, "Browne's effectively stark, magnificently realistic illustrations of the zoo animals offer a distinct contrast to his clever renditions of the supposedly human visitors to the zoo."

Among the most personal of Browne's works is his illustrated retelling of the classic 1930s film King Kong. Browne bases many of his illustrations on the movie while adding several twists of his own. For example, the female lead bears a striking resemblance to Marilyn Monroe. His dramatic, dreamlike illustrations have been noted for their new mastery of crowd scenes and group movement, while his text—considered both a love story and a tragedy by critics—was described by a reviewer in Publishers Weekly as "appropriately cinematic." Writing in Junior Bookshelf, Marcus Crouch—noting the "fine production and superb art-work"—stated that whether Browne's version of King Kong "adds anything to the interpretation to justify his efforts is open to doubt. This is not to say that the book is anything other than a remarkable achievement." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly commented, "If ever a couple seemed made for each other artistically, it's the multitalented Browne and King Kong.… Browne's imagery reaches new heights—think Gorilla on steroids—with his powerful renderings of the fabled beast." MacRae concluded in Magpies that Browne's "dramatic pictures complemented to perfection this classic of the cinema."

Discussing the work in Books for Keeps, Browne acknowledged that King Kong pays homage to his father: "I have in the past tried to explain my fascination with gorillas by comparing them to my father. He was a big man and I was a small boy. He was strong and physical.… Yet he was also artistic and sensitive.… It's the dual nature of Kong which attracts me—the terrifying beast who is, in reality, a gentle, beautiful creature. Memories of my father's death have, for me, terrible echoes of Kong's fall from the Empire State Building." Browne called King Kong "the most exhausting book I've ever worked on." However, the author wrote, "I'm just beginning to consider the possibilities of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or Tarzan, or Frankenstein or … any suggestions?"

My Dad was also inspired by Browne's affection for his late father, and the author/illustrator felt the urge to create it after finding his father's old bathrobe on a hanger in the closet. With gentle pictures done in a bathrobeplaid motif, My Dad celebrates one youngster's fearless, loving, and sometimes silly father, who can send the Big Bad Wolf packing with a simple gesture and who sings tenor with Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. "Browne has a winner here," commented Beth Tegart in School Library Journal. "The clever pictures have true child appeal." GraceAnne A. DeCandido, writing in Booklist, found the mutual affection between son and father "genuinely moving as well as funny," and a Publishers Weekly reviewer deemed the work "an endearing paean to patriarchs."

The same family that visits the zoo in Zoo takes a trip to the art museum in The Shape Game. This time it is Mother's birthday, and Dad and the two sons reluctantly accompany her out of a sense of duty. As the family strolls the halls of London's Tate Britain gallery, Mom encourages the boys to make up stories about the paintings—and soon enough, the various family members find themselves inside the art works. The day culminates with a train ride home, during which the boys sketch random shapes and turn them into recognizable pictures. The book was inspired by Browne's work as an author/illustrator-in-residence at the Tate gallery, as well as by his ongoing crusade to interest young children in fine art. Horn Book reviewer Roger Sutton felt that The Shape Game offers an "important invitation to make the connection between art and life and back again." A Publishers Weekly critic concluded: "This personal, playful introduction to art and drawing may well give readers a fresh take on both."

With dozens of books to his credit, Browne noted in Publishers Weekly that his job has gotten harder, not easier. "You're much more aware of what people expect from you. Twenty years ago I just had an idea and I did it. Now I'm a bit more conscious of what I'm doing and the effect of what I'm doing." Asked if he is still having fun at his chosen occupation, Browne replied, "Yes, absolutely. Every bit as much as when I started."