Artists Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Barbara Lowell Children's Book Author

Books For Kids — Frida Kahlo

27 June 2016January 25, 2023

Me Frida

by Amy Novesky, Illustrated by David Diaz

Like a tiny bird in a big city, Frida Kahlo feels lost and lonely when she arrives in San Francisco with her husband, the famous artist Diego Rivera. It is the first time she has left her home in Mexico. And Frida wants to be a painter too. But as Frida begins to explore San Francisco on her own, she discovers more than the beauty. She discovers the diversity, and exuberance of America. She finds the inspiration she needs to become one of the most celebrated artists of all time. 4-8 years

Frida Kahlo

Viva Frida

by Yuyi Morales

Frida Kahlo, one of the world’s most famous and unusual artists is revered around the world. Her life was filled with laughter, love, and tragedy, all of which influenced what she painted on her canvases. 4-8 years

Frida Kahlo and Her Animalitos

By Monica Brown, Illustrated by John Parra

The fascinating Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, is remembered for her self-portraits and her dramatic works featuring bold and vibrant colors. Monica Brown tells the story of Frida and her beloved pets — two monkeys, a parrot, three dogs, two turkeys, an eagle, a black cat, and a fawn. These animals helped to inspire Frida’s art and her life. 4-8 years

Frida

by Jonah Winter, Illustrated by Ana Juan

When her mother was worn out from caring for her five sisters, her father gave her lessons in brushwork and color. When polio kept her bedridden for nine months, drawing saved her from boredom. And when a bus accident left her in unimaginable agony, her paintings expressed her pain and depression — and eventually, her joys and her loves. Over and over again, Frida Kahlo turned the challenges of her life into art. 4-8 years

My Little Golden Book About Frida Kahlo

By Silivia Lopez, Illustrated by Elisa Chavarri

This Little Golden Book captures the essence of Frida Kahlo for the youngest readers. From overcoming illness, to being one of only a handful of girls at her school in Mexico, to having her paintings hanging in museums, this is an inspiring read for future trailblazers and their parents! Features informative text and colorful illustrations inspired by Frida’s own artwork. 2-5 years

Frida, A Board Book

By Summer Morrison

Join a youthful Frida as she spends the day with her animal friends, practicing their names in English and Spanish. At her bedtime, all of the friends (amigos) gather together to say goodnight (Buenas Noches). This book is inspired by the artwork and life of Frida Kahlo.

Frida Kahlo

By Isabel Munoz, Illustrated by Jane Kent

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo created vibrantly hued paintings and led an equally colorful life. Known for her self-portraits, she became a feminist icon whose work now sells for millions of dollars. This biography looks at Frida’s childhood, including her bout with polio, as well as her devotion to Mexican culture and political causes. It tells about the bus accident that left her in chronic pain but also sparked her career and her marriage to Diego Rivera. A timeline and simple quiz help kids test their understanding and knowledge. 6 and up

The Story of Frida Kahlo: A Biography Book for New Readers

By Susan B. Katz

Frida Kahlo is one of the most celebrated artists in the world, but before she made history with her beautiful paintings and brave spirit, she went through a life-changing accident that would have made many people want to give up. This book shows you how she fought to overcome setbacks and follow her passion to create amazing artwork and make the world a more colorful place.

You can explore how she went from a young girl from a small Mexican town to one of the most well-known painters in history. How will her creativity and can-do attitude inspire you? 8 years+

Frida Kahlo: The Artist in the Blue House

By Magdalena Holzhey

This book looks into the world of the artist Frida Kahlo and introduces children to the themes that infused her vibrant paintings and shows how her life influenced her art. Through illustrations of her work and photographs of Kahlo and her family, children are encouraged to learn about her life, artworks, and important relationships. 8-12 years

Frida Kahlo: The Artist Who Painted Herself

by Margaret Frith, Illustrated by Tomie dePaola

This book explores the creative and imaginative world of Mexico’s most celebrated female artist. 5-9 years

Who Was Frida Kahlo

by Susan Fabiny, illustrated by Jerry Hoare

You can always recognize a painting by Kahlo. She is in nearly all of them with her black braided hair and colorful Mexican outfits. Frida transformed herself into a living work of art. She is famous for her self-portraits and her haunting imagery as well as her marriage to painter Diego Rivera. Her beloved homeland Mexico inspired Frida with its ancient culture and history. 8-12 years

A book about Frida Kahlo’s artist husband Diego Rivera:

Diego Rivera: His World And Ours

by Duncan Tonatiuh

This book introduces one of the most popular artists of the twentieth century, Diego Rivera, to young readers. It tells the story of Diego as a young, mischievous boy who demonstrated a clear passion for art and then went on to become one of the most famous painters in the world. 6-9 years

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

The book descriptions used are primarily from the publishers.

If you like this post, then please consider sharing it and leaving a comment below. Thank you! Barbara Lowell, Children’s Author

Frida Kahlo Facts for Kids: https://kids.kiddle.co/Frida_Kahlo

You may like Books For Kids: Artists https://barbaralowell.com/books-for-kids-artists

Filippo Brunelleschi, Pippo the Fool

19 May 2016August 21, 2019

Author Tracey E. Fern climbed the 463 steps to the top of the Duomo in Florence, Italy. She “wondered how such an enormous structure could have been built in the fifteenth century.”

Researching the Duomo, she found Filippo Brunelleschi. She wrote Pippo The Fool, about how Filippo, considered a fool, constructed a masterpiece.

The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore/The Duomo

Filippo, an architect without formal training, entered a competition that changed his life and that of the city of Florence forever. In 1418, the Florence wool merchant’s guild decided to solve a problem. The Duomo’s construction begun in 1296, had never been finished. No one knew how to construct a dome without buttresses and Gothic arches for support. In Florence, both were thought to be undesirable. The existing walls also required an octagonal shape. How could a stable eight-sided dome be built?

Filippo Brunelleschi

The guild held a competition for architects with the winner building the dome. Filippo Brunelleschi’s idea seemed the most promising. He designed an interior and an exterior dome. With this design, expensive wooden scaffolds would not be needed. But Filippo would not tell anyone how he would construct the dome. He thought his idea would be stolen. Filippo seemed both stubborn and foolish — Pippo the Fool.

The people in charge of the project hired Filippo. But they required that well-known architect, Lorenzo Ghiberti, to work on the project with him. Lorenzo had lost to Filippo in the competition. Now Filippo was forced to work with Lorenzo.

It was Filippo, without any help from Lorenzo, who constructed the dome. He invented complex machines that lifted heavy sandstone beams and over four million bricks above the Cathedral. These machines were unique. According to National Geographic, “…they weren’t rivaled until the industrial revolution.”

Filippo designed the dome’s brickwork in a herringbone pattern. This added stability. And his design used a lighter interior and exterior two-dome design. This worked where a heavier single-dome design might have failed.

Completed in sixteen years, the dome is a testament to the genius of Filippo Brunelleschi.

If you like this post, then please consider sharing it and leaving a comment below. Thank you! Barbara Lowell, Children’s Author

You may like: Books For Kids: Inventors https://barbaralowell.com/books-for-kids-inventors

How was the dome constructed? Learn how in this National Geographic video.

Statue of Filippo Brunelleschi Gazing Up At His Dome

Vinnie Ream’s Abraham Lincoln

20 April 2016August 21, 2019

Vinnie Ream, eighteen-years-old, was the first woman and the youngest person, to receive a commission from the United States government to sculpt a statue. She won the commission over many talented male sculptors. But why?

As a young girl, Vinnie Ream learned to paint and draw from members of the Winnebago tribe, in Madison, Wisconsin where she lived. In 1861, her family moved to Washington, D.C. To help support her family during the Civil War, fourteen-year-old Vinnie worked as a clerk for the U.S. Post Office, the first woman to do so. Vinnie also volunteered in local hospitals helping wounded soldiers to write letters home.

Vinnie Ream

Through a congressman, Vinnie met sculptor Clark Mills, a renowned artist at the time. At his studio, she watched him work and felt that she too could sculpt. Vinnie worked with clay for a few hours and made a medallion of an Indian chief’s head. Impressed by Vinnie’s ability, Mills invited her to be his apprentice.

Soon, she sculpted busts of members of Congress who became her friends. They asked her to produce a marble bust. Vinnie chose President Abraham Lincoln as her subject. The president rejected the idea at first. But after learning that Vinnie was a westerner and was not well-off financially, he agreed. It is said that Vinnie worked on her bust of Lincoln in his office over a five month period.

Vinnie Ream’s Bust of Abraham Lincoln

After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, Congress decided to pay tribute to him with a full-size statue to be placed in the U.S. Capitol rotunda. Impressed by the life-like appearance of her bust of Lincoln, Vinnie was awarded the $10,000 commission and was provided a studio in the basement of the Capitol. To make the correct measurements, she was given the clothing that Lincoln wore the night he was assassinated.

Unlike other sculptors, Vinnie opened her to studio to the public. Visitors watched tiny Vinnie stand on scaffolding to sculpt the tall clay model. Once it was completed, it was cast in plaster and shipped to Rome. Vinnie and her parents traveled there to select marble for the statue. She choose white Carrara marble the type that Michelangelo had used. The statue was then sculpted by Italian stonecutters and unveiled at the U.S. Capitol in January 1871. Vinnie was only twenty-three-years-old.

Vinnie Ream’s Statue of Abrahma Lincoln

“The one great, lasting, all-dominating impression that I have always carried of Lincoln has been that of unfathomable sorrow, and it was this that I tried to put into my statue.” — Vinnie Ream

If you like this post, then please consider sharing it and leaving a comment below. Thank you! Barbara Lowell, Children’s Author

A Book For Kids:

Vinnie and Abraham

by Dawn FitzGerald

Illustrated by Catherine Stock

To Learn More About Vinnie Ream Visit: http://www.vinnieream.com

You may like: Books For Kids: Abe Lincoln https://barbaralowell.com/books-for-kids-abe-lincoln

Michelangelo’s Statue Of David

6 April 2016January 25, 2023

Michelangelo’s David didn’t happen the way you might think. The marble wasn’t a lovely block recently cut from the quarry. And it wasn’t presented to Michelangelo to sculpt into a masterpiece.

Instead, the giant marble block had been worked on before by two sculptors. Both rejected it. They thought it was too imperfect a piece to sculpt into a stable statue. One or both had also damaged the piece. Even the great Leonardo Da Vinci refused to work on it.

For twenty-five years it lay untouched in the Opera del Duomo’s courtyard in Florence. In 1501, Michelangelo was asked to turn the marble into a statue of the biblical figure David. At 26 years old, he was already a master artist and sculptor.

Michelangelo Bounarroti

Michelangelo agreed, believing that he could sculpt David from the rough marble. He worked on the statue privately at his workshop hiding it from view. He chipped away for over two years, often with little sleep, focusing solely on his work. Michelangelo successfully transformed the enormous marble block into a work of art. It stands 17 feet tall.

Florence, Italy

In January 1504, he presented his statue to the board members of the Cathedral of Florence. They had commissioned the statue to be placed along the Cathedral’s roofline with other statues. But when they saw Michelangelo’s David they knew it belonged in a prominent place in Florence — one where everyone could see it. The Piazza deel Signoria, Florence’s seat of government was chosen as the site.

In May 1504, forty men worked for four days to move David the half mile from Michelangelo’s workshop to its new home. A witness wrote:

“It was midnight, May 14th, and the Giant was taken out of the workshop. They even had to tear down the archway, so huge he was. Forty men were pushing the large wooden cart where David stood protected by ropes, sliding it through town on trunks. The Giant eventually got to Signoria Square on June 8th 1504, where it was installed next to the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, replacing Donatello’s bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes”. — From the Galleria dell’ Accademia (Accademia Galley) website at: https://accademia.org

The statue of David became a symbol of freedom for the people of Florence. It warned others that Florence would defend itself just as David had defended the Israelites.

David at the Accademia Gallery

In 1873, David was moved into the Galleria dell’ Accademia, or Accademia Gallery, to protect it from additional weathering and damage. It stands there today, a magnificent testament to the genius and skill of its sculptor, Michelangelo Buonarroti.

If you like this post, then please consider sharing it and leaving a comment below. Thank you! Barbara Lowell, Children’s Author

You may like: Filippo Brunelleschi, Pippo the Fool https://barbaralowell.com/filippo-brunelleschi-pippo-fool

Books For Kids: Artists https://barbaralowell.com/books-for-kids-artists

A Book For Kids:

Stone Giant: Michelangelo’s David And How He Came To Be

by Jane Sutcliffe

Illustrated by John Shelley

Henri Matisse, The Boy Who Became A Painter

23 March 2016August 21, 2019

In 234 words, Patricia MacLachlan tells the story of how young Henri Matisse became the master painter of color and light and movement.

Growing up in gray northern France, near the border with Belgium, Henri’s mother Anna Heloise brightened his world with color. She painted porcelain plates with scenes of nature. The plates hung on the walls of their house along with vivid red rugs that also covered a dirt floor. And Henri watched the colors of his pigeon’s feathers shimmer — “iridescence” his mother told him.

In The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse, Patricia MacLachlan draws a child in by using the second person point of view and asking “ if you” questions, until the child knows, that if you had grown up in Henri Matisse’s world, then you would become a painter, too.

The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse

Back Cover Illustrated by Hadley Hooper

Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse attended law school, passed the bar exam, and with his father’s help found a position as a law clerk — although he did not enjoy practicing law. But everything changed when Henri became ill with appendicitis. While recovering, his mother gave him paints and supplies. It was then that Henri knew he would spend the rest of his life as an artist.

If you like this post, then please consider sharing it and/or leaving a comment below. Thank you! Barbara Lowell, Children’s Author

To Learn More Visit: http://www.henri-matisse.net/biography.html

You May Like: Books For Kids: Artists https://barbaralowell.com/books-for-kids-artists