Esphyr Slobodkina (the name is pronounced ess-FEER sloh-BOD-kee-nah) was born in the Siberian town of Chelyabinsk on Sept. 22, 1908.
Esphyr immigrated to the United States on a student visa at the age of 29. She enrolled at the National Academy of Design, NYC, and in the 1930s, she worked painting lamp shades and soon after murals for the WPA. Esphyr was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, which began amid controversy in 1936.
In 1937 Slobodkina met the children's author Margaret Wise Brown. In an effort to find work as an illustrator, Slobodkina wrote and illustrated a s
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Awakening from a well-earned nap beside a stout tree, an itinerant cap peddler finds that his wares have been confiscated by a band of feisty monkeys cavorting in the branches overhead. In reply to his commands to return the caps, the monkeys simply imita... SEE MORE