The Rutgers' Collection of Children's Literature

Abstract

H E R U T G E R S Collection of Children's Literature is a repository for the original art of children's books and contains over 3,000 pieces of artwork spanning fifty years of book illustration. The collection is housed at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Although the emphasis is on New Jersey illustrators, the collection represents artists from all over the country who have generously donated their artwork. The collection is dedicated to furthering scholarly research and artistic creativity by documenting the production of children's books from the preparatory sketches to the full-color illustrations and the finished book. Original manuscripts are also collected and preserved by the Special Collections Department at the Archibald S. Alexander Library, the main library center for the university. By gathering together the written and visual material of children's books, the collection provides an invaluable archive for future research on this important genre. The director of the art museum, Phillip Dennis Cate, first became interested in the art for children's books in 1974 when he organized the exhibition American Illustrators of Children's Books. The quality of the artwork in that exhibition inspired the university to respond to the growing interest in establishing an archive for manuscripts and illustrations of children's books. Harry Devlin, a prominent illustrator and member of the Advisory Council on Children's Literature, was the prime mover behind the concept of the repository. It was his concern that a wealth of artwork by New Jersey artists was leaving the state and being collected by other institutions. The collection was officially founded in 1979 and was quickly expanded to encompass artists from all parts of the United States, Europe, and Asia. A collection of the original art for the printed book complements the art