The Storybook Magic of Jerry Pinkney

This exhibition celebrates the distinctive imagination and storytelling power of Jerry Pinkney (1939-2021), a master watercolorist and one of the most beloved artists in children’s literature, through two of his books based on true stories of American history.

Black Cowboy, Wild Horses: A True Story (1998)  tells the story of Bob Lemmons, a formerly enslaved man who becomes a cowboy and follows a trail of mustangs across the American West. Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band In the World (2009) captures the energy and music of the first interracial women’s swing band, who performed throughout the United States in the 1930s and 1940s, and toured Europe during World War II. 

Pinkney grew up in Germantown and studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art (now the University of the Arts). He has illustrated more than one hundred books and in 2010 received a Caldecott Medal for The Lion and the Mouse. Pinkney was honored by the Society of Illustrators with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 and a Hall of Fame induction in 2011, and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. He was recently nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen award and was recognized in Philadelphia with a Jerry Pinkney Day on July 19, 2016.

01.28.17 | Open House: The Storybook Magic of Jerry Pinkney
03.04.17 | The Long Ride Home: The African American Cowboy Experience in America

03.14.17 | Jerry Pinkney Book Signing
03.26.17 | Jerry Pinkney Family Festival and Closing Reception