The Gentle Art of Allen Say - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Nov, 2000

In his award-winning children's books, Say's simple prose and often haunting illustrations explore themes such as finding one's identity, fitting in, and the meaning of family and home.

IN 1972, Allen Say wrote and illustrated his first children's book, Dr. Smith's Safari. Twenty books later, he has become one of the most critically acclaimed children's authors of today. A two-time Caldecott Medal winner, Say creates art that is accessible to diverse audiences through his explorations of the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western cultures.

The Japanese-born Say began training in both Western and Japanese styles of art under the renowned Japanese cartoonist, Noro Shinpei, a man Say still considers his spiritual father, before he immigrated to the U.S. in 1953 at the age of 16. Arriving in this country without a knowledge of English, Say continued his visual art training as he was attending regular school.

While he was still a student, Say was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in Germany. Say began his career as a photographer for the official Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Once back in the U.S., he was hired by a prominent advertising agency in 1965 and thus began his 20-year stint as a commercial photographer, becoming one of the most highly paid photographers on the West Coast.

Say's career brought him in contact with several art directors who, impressed by his ability to sketch out ideas for photographs, encouraged him to use his drawing and design skills again. He eventually returned to his initial love--drawing and painting. Say's first books were tightly rendered in pen and ink, a style that he gradually was to abandon for watercolors. His early works include a few collaborations, but, since 1988, he has both authored and illustrated his own books.

Say's stories are closely linked to his childhood, using memories of his home in Japan, family photographs, and experiences of his new life in America. He was born to a Japanese-American mother and a Korean father in 1937 in Yokohama, Japan. Say's parents divorced when he was nine, and he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother, who had greatly disapproved of his parent's marriage. At the age of 12, Say was living on his own in a small apartment in Tokyo. During this isolated time in his life, he discovered his passion for drawing and apprenticed with Shinpei. The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice, Say's only novel to date, relates his early life in Japan.

A book reviewer for The New York Times wrote of Say's Tree of Cranes (1991), "The simplicity and complexity are contained in each other, so that the satisfaction yielded at the end of the first reading and gazing (for the pictures here enrapture) reverberates with the promise of what is sensed though not yet understood." In a review of the Caldecott-winning Grandfather's Journey, another critic observed, "As in the best children's books, the plain understated words have the intensity of poetry. The watercolor paintings frame so much story and emotion that they break your heart."

"Allen Say's Journey: The Art and Words of a Children's Book Author," an exhibition of 55 original watercolors, is on view at the Japanese American National Museum, Los Angeles, Calif., through Feb. 11, 2001.