Bogart, Jo Ellen. Capturing Joy: The Story of Maud Lewis. Toronto: Tundra Books; Plattsburgh, N.Y.: Tundra Books of Northern New York, 2002.
Scenes of everyday life by a self-trained artist: horses pulling sleighs, cows grazing in fields, children walking to school, fishing boats on the sea. Maud Lewis – one of Canada’s greatest folk artists – didn’t follow all the rules regarding proportion and perspective. She didn’t include shadows in her scenes of summer. She sometimes painted impossible things, such as flowers on evergreen trees or snowy valleys surrounded by green hills. But all the time, her paintings were full of joy, even though her own life was full of hardship. This biography – illustrated by Mark Lang – isn’t the most well-designed picture book: the font is too small and serious; and the layout doesn’t reflect the happiness of the full-page colourful paintings. But the text is full of information and so the book would be useful as a read-aloud for children eight years old and up. It would be especially valuable as an introduction to a lesson on folk art or a unit on facing adversity with courage.
More biographies of artists Â
More picture books for artists
