Trina Schart Hyman
Trina Schart Hyman (1939-2004) was a prominent American illustrator and author known for her captivating illustrations in children's literature. Born in Philadelphia, she developed a strong imagination and artistic talent from a young age, encouraged by her mother to read and draw. After studying art in various cities, she began her professional career in Sweden, illustrating her first book in 1961. Over the years, Hyman illustrated more than one hundred books, gaining particular acclaim for her work on fairy tales and folklore.
Throughout her career, she was recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Caldecott Medal for her adaptation of "Saint George and the Dragon." Hyman was also noted for her progressive approach to representation in her illustrations, particularly after her daughter's marriage to a person from Cameroon, which inspired her to include a diverse range of characters in her work. She served as art director for the magazine *Cricket* and influenced her peers to consider global perspectives in their art. Hyman's legacy continues to resonate in the world of children's literature, making her a significant figure in the field.
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Subject Terms
Trina Schart Hyman
Writer
- Born: April 8, 1939
- Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Died: November 19, 2004
- Place of death: Lebanon, New Hampshire
Biography
Trina Schart was born on April 8, 1939, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her father was Albert H. Schart, a salesman, and her mother was Margaret Doris Bruck Schart. The family lived in a small rural housing development about twenty miles north of Philadelphia. She was a shy child, who had a well-developed imagination and a gift for drawing imagined scenes, often populated with kings and queens. Her mother encouraged her two daughters to read and to draw.
After high school, Schart studied art in Philadelphia, Boston, and Stockholm, Sweden, finding in her art classes that for the first time she was comfortable with the people around her. In 1959, she married Harris Hyman, a mechanical engineer, and changed her name to Trina Schart Hyman, the name she used all her publishing career, even after divorcing in 1968. The couple had one daughter, Katrin, born in 1963.
While Schart and her husband were living in Sweden, she illustrated her first book, Toffe och den lilla bilen (1961, Toffe and the little car). Although she tried to get more work, her next job was not until 1963, back in Boston, where a friend who worked for Little, Brown arranged for her to illustrate Riddles, Riddles, from A to Z. This led to many more opportunities, and Schart illustrated a total of eighteen children’s books in the 1960’s, including one, How Six Found Christmas (1969), that she wrote herself. Although she wrote and illustrated a few more books over a long career, it is primarily as an illustrator that she earned her reputation.
After her divorce in 1968, Schart and her infant daughter moved to an old farmhouse in rural New Hampshire, where she had room for a well-equipped studio and for many visiting artists. In 1972, Schart became art director for Cricket, and continued to illustrate books in addition to providing illustrations for the magazine. She left the magazine’s staff in 1979 to devote herself full time to illustrating books.
As she grew, Katrin served as a model for many of her mother’s illustrations; in adulthood, as Katrin Tchana, she wrote several books of folklore herself, some illustrated by her mother. After Katrin married a man from the Cameroon, Hyman began to incorporate people of color into her illustrations. She also encouraged her writer and illustrator friends to also think more globally in their work.
She died of breast cancer in Lebanon, New Hampshire, on November 19, 2004. Hyman’s work received virtually every important award available to illustrators of children’s books. Saint George and the Dragon: A Golden Legend Adapted from Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene (1984), written by Margaret Hodges, won the 1985 Caldecott Medal, and three other books illustrated by Schart were Caldecott Honor Books. She received Boston Globe-Horn Book honors for illustration four times, as well as many honors. Of the more than one hundred books she illustrated, her most important work is her lush and inventive illustrations of fairy tales and tales from folklore.