Chris Van Allsburg Biography

The second child of Richard Van Allsburg and Doris Christiansen Van Allsburg is Chris Van Allsburg. He was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 18, 1949 and in 1947, his sister Karen was born. A creamery called East End Creamery was owned and operated by Chris’s paternal grandfather, Peter. They delivered the products made after bottling the milk and other dairy products in yellow and blue trucks to homes around Grand Rapids. Chris’s family lived in an old farm house next door to the large brick creamery building when Chris was born. The house was surrounded by other houses and buildings by 1949. After Peter, his grandfather retired, Chris’s father and Chris’s three uncles continued to run the diary. Chris’s family moved into a new house at the edge of Grand Rapids that was part of a development when Chris was three years old. Chris walked about a mile and a half everyday to Breton Downs School which he attended until 6th grade and then his family moved again. In East Grand Rapids, Chris and his family moved into an old brick Tudor Style house. The street looked like the street on the cover of The Polar Express. The houses were all set back the same distance from the street. Between the sidewalk and the street grew gigantic Elm trees with long branches that touched the branches of the trees on the other side of the street. Chris moved to this street with two Siamese cats (one named Eloise and the other Fafner), his sister, mom and dad. Chris attended senior and junior high school in East Grand Rapids. Although he did take art classes, his talents and interests were seen in maths and science. At East Grand Rapids High School, the high level of academic success gave a specific number of students the opportunity to attend the University of Michigan each year, and an admissions officer was sent to Chris’s high school. The job of the admissions officer is to interview students and admit them on the spot if test scores and grade met the school’s requirements. Chris remembers his interview vividly because it was going to determine his career. *(there’s a long story/narration here which wasn’t edited) According to Chris, “I sat in a waiting area in the guidance counselor’s office with an admission form. Before I finished filling it out I was called in to see the man from the University. I entered the office and handed him my form and took a seat. He looked it over and noticed that I had not chosen a college within the University. That is, I had not indicated what I intended to study when I got to the University. I asked to see the form and, like looking over a menu, noticed a listing for ‘college of A & D,’ and asked the man what that was. He explained that it was the college of Architecture and Design, which included the art school. It had never crossed my mind that someone could go to college and make art. I hadn’t taken any art in high school but I liked to draw and it occurred to me that studying art could be a lot of fun. I told the admissions officer that art school sounded interesting. Perhaps I’d give that a try. This was in 1967, the last year that the University admitted art students without a portfolio [a sample of their art work] which meant that the admissions officer could simply admit me if he was satisfied with my test scores and high school transcript. Unfortunately, my transcript showed that I had not taken any art class in the last four years. The admissions man pointed that out and said I was not qualified to enter the art school. I was seventeen at the time, and like a lot of seventeen year olds, I liked to try to outsmart adults. So I told the admissions man that because my artistic skills were so advanced, I studied art privately on Saturdays, rather than take high school classes. I told him I’d been studying privately for some years and was currently doing oil painting. None of this was true. He seemed to be impressed, but not entirely convinced. He asked me what I thought of Norman Rockwell. I knew that some people didn’t like Norman Rockwell, a famous painter/illustrator who did magazine covers. I wasn’t sure if the admissions man was measuring my sophistication, in which case I’d have to answer that I didn’t think much of Rockwell. Or if he was measuring my values, I didn’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, but I was pretty sure the admissions man did. I guessed that he was probably a fan of Mr. Rockwell, so I told him something like, ‘I believe Norman Rockwell is unfairly criticized for being sentimental. I think he is a wonderful painter who captures America’s longings, America’s dreams and presents American life with the drama and sensitivity of a great playwright.’ “The admissions man pounded his fist on the table and said ‘Boy, you are absolutely right.’ He signed my papers and I became, that day, an official art student.” (End of quote/story narration) In the fall of 1967, Chris went to the University of Michigan and to his surprise, art school meant art classes all the time instead of a few art courses a week. Other students had more experience than him and this made him feel out of place. And then he discovered sculpture, a place where he could utilize the craftsmanship and skills he’d worked on as a young boy constructing boats and model cars. At the University of Michigan, he majored in sculpture and learnt resin molding, bronze casting, wood carving and other useful techniques. In 1972 he graduated and enrolled in the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where he continued studying sculpture and also graduated. Chris set up a sculpture studio in Providence, RI., after earning his M.F.A degree at RISD in 1975. Fours years earlier at the University of Michigan, he met Lisa Morrison who was also an art student. She studied education and had become an elementary school art teacher in the Providence school system and they eventually got married. In 1977 at the Alan Stone Gallery in New York City, Chris first exhibited his sculpture and also elsewhere in New England. Although sculpture was his first interest, he had started to draw pictures at night in a little room in the apartment he lived in with Lisa. He didn’t see the importance of these drawings but others who saw the drawings, did. Two of his drawings were given to a curator from The Whitney Museum of Art to view and they were exhibited in 1978 at the same Museum. When teaching her 3rd grade students, Lisa used picture books and encouraged Chris to consider making a story book for children with illustrations. Author and illustrator David Macaulay who was Lisa’s friend agreed with Lisa on the kind of pictures Chris could collate and create into a book of illustration. Lisa was advised by Macaulay to show Chris’s illustrations to his editor at Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston known as Walter Lorraine. Mr. Lorraine’s response to the pictures Lisa showed him was positive, but instead of enlisting Chris to create pictures for someone else’s story, Mr. Lorraine advised Chris to come up with his own stories. Although Chris was still in the business of making sculptures, he began to create time to work on his stories and pictures; and in 1979, he published The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. From then on, Chris has illustrated and written 19 books and three books written by Mark Helprin were illustrated by Chris. Chris was awarded the Caldecott Honor Medal for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi in 1980. For The Polar Express and Jumanji, Chris won two Caldecott Medals; he was also awarded the Boston Globe Honor for The Mysteries of Harris Burdick and The Polar Express; The Regina Medal for lifetime achievement in children's literature was awarded to Chris; and for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, he received the Boston Globe Horn Book Award. Jumanji won the National Book Award for Book Illustration in 1982 and was made into a popular feature film in 1996. Chris and Lisa welcomed their daughter Sophia in 1991. Anna, their second daughter was born in 1995. His book, The Polar Express was made into a major motion picture in 2004 starring Tom Hanks. Chris resides in Beverly, MA, on Boston’s North Shore and plays tennis and rides his bike for fun. He doesn’t plant musical instruments.

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