“That wasn't a reflection of his life growing up, his neighborhood it wasn't real,” said Clancy. In eight years, he illustrated some three dozen books, none of which prominently figured a minority character. A painter who worked in the comic industry and commercial art, Keats fell into children’s books when a publisher reached out and asked him to illustrate for her children’s division. Perhaps this helped fuel the injustice he later felt over the absence of minority children in the books he illustrated. “He felt a sort of shared experience with others who had gone through discrimination because of his experiences as a Jewish child, his socioeconomic status, also just because he was a small, sort of artistic loner growing up,” said Clancy.
Growing up in poverty in the Brooklyn tenements, Keats felt both the sting of poverty and anti-Semitism, which was expressed freely and flagrantly at that time. Visitors will also learn about Keats himself, who was born in 1916 to Jewish-Polish immigrants-a fact Clancy said many are surprised by. Artwork is hung closer to a child’s eye-level, family-friendly labels are designed to be read and understood by children, and kids can walk through simulated snow, match characters with their shadows, or even make collages of their own. “What Keats effectively proved is that that notion was entirely false,” she said.Īlthough The Snowy Day’s historical significance might not be fully grasped by children, the Skirball has made sure the book’s young audience is fully included in the exhibit. A Blue Star Museum, the Skirball is currently exhibiting The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats, which originated at the Jewish Museum in New York. “The children's picture book publishing industry didn't believe before that time that books featuring minority characters would sell very well it didn't think that there was a market for it,” said Erin Clancy, curator at the Skirball Cultural Center in California.
Using beautiful layers of collage illustrations (one of the first to do so), the book describes the snow day adventures of Peter, a little boy who lives in the city. Written and illustrated by Keats, the book won the 1963 Caldecott Medal and went on to become an icon of children’s literature. In 1962, he published The Snowy Day, the first full-color picture book to feature a black child as its protagonist. Amid the sit-ins, marches, and protests of the Civil Rights movement, Ezra Jack Keats played a quieter role, choosing to be an activist on the page rather than in the streets.
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