The Storybook Magic of Jerry Pinkney

This exhibition celebrates the distinctive imagination and storytelling power of Jerry Pinkney (born 1939), a master watercolorist and one of the most beloved artists in children’s literature, through two of his books based on true stories of American history. Black Cowboy, Wild Horses tells the story of Bob Lemmons, a formerly enslaved man who becomes a cowboy and follows a trail of mustangs across the American West. Sweethearts of Rhythm captures the energy and music of the first interracial women’s swing band, who performed throughout the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, and toured Europe during World War II. 

Pinkney grew up in Germantown and studied at the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts). He has illustrated more than one hundred books and in 2010 received a Caldecott Medal for The Lion and the Mouse. Pinkney was honored by the Society of Illustrators with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 and a Hall of Fame induction in 2011, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. He was recently nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen award and was recognized in Philadelphia with a Jerry Pinkney Day on July 19, 2016.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.