Who are Anne and Harlow Rockwell?
Anne Rockwell (1934-2018) and Harlow Rockwell (1910-1988) were my parents. They created children's books as a team in a studio off our dining room in Old Greenwich, CT. When my father was an art director in advertising, and he also illustrated books that my mom wrote. Many of my parent's books, like The Toolbox and The Awful Mess where stories about our family experiences. Along with concept books and original stories, Mom has written books on almost every subject, including American history, art history, fables, mythology, and science. Anne Rockwell illustrated most of her books herself but also wrote texts for other illustrators.
At the dinner table, our parents were always talking about current and future books, and often our vacations took us to wonderful places like Block Island and Europe for their inspiration or research. Our home was filled with my parents' fine art. Mom created oil paintings, bronze sculptures, etchings and needlepoint tapestries. My father made found object assemblages, abstract oil paintings and woodcuts.
When I was a teenager, I worked in my parents studio painting in color separations on acetate, when full color books were not the norm. As an adult I have been lucky enough to illustrate 18 of my mom's texts.
You can learn about my family, and other children's book families in Pass it Down by Leonard Marcus.