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Special Issue newsletter
Volume 2 Number 6
© 2008 Cellar Door Books |
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Tasha Tudor, the noted illustrator and watercolorist, has died at her home in Marlboro, Vermont, Wednesday June 18, 2008. She was born in Boston, August 28, 1915, the daughter of William Starling Burgess and Rosamund Tudor Burgess.
She is survived by her four children,
Bethany Tudor, West Brattleboro, VT
Seth Tudor (Marjorie), Marlboro, VT
Thomas S. Tudor (Eun Im), Fairfax Station, VA
Efner Tudor Holmes (Peter), Hopkinton, NH
Eleven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren
Laura Johnson (Davie) Salisbury, MD, daughter Brittany
Winslow Tudor (Amy), Marlboro, VT
Benjamin Tudor, Marlboro, VT
Nathan Holmes (Holly), Contoocook, NH
Jason Holmes (Kelly), Big Fork, MT, daughters Isabella and Elizabeth
Seth Holmes, Hopkinton, NH
Rani Tudor Mullen, Williamsburg, VA, daughter Tara and son Kiran
Kim Tudor, Madrid, Spain, two sons Quentin, Liam
Maya Tudor Griffith, Princeton, NJ, daughter Amelia
Jan Tudor, Oxford, England
Hanna Tudor, Fairfax Station, VA
Two step granddaughters,
Jennifer Tudor Wyman, VT, daughter Hannah, son ___
Julie Tudor, WY, three children
She is also survived by two half-sisters Ann Hopps, Camden, Me., Diana Taylor San Francisco, CA; and her former husband Allan John Woods, Goffstown, NH, nieces and nephews. Her childhood friend Rose Mikkelson survives, still living in the Redding, Ct., home where she and Tudor lived as young girls.
Tasha Tudor was christened Starling Burgess (named for her father, a noted engineer). She soon was being called Tasha. The young Tasha used Tudor rather than Burgess from a young age. She created all her work as Tasha Tudor. This, because her parents divorced when she was eight years old, and because her mother, an accomplished portraitist, always used her maiden name Tudor. After her parent's divorce, Tasha lived with the Mikkelsons, family friends in Redding, Ct. Her mother soon purchased a colonial house in Redding which became Tasha's home and remained so for several years after her marriage. Rosamund Tudor taught her daughter the rudiments of sketching, drawing and painting. Tasha created and painted her first two books by the time she was 19. They have never been published even though Hitty's Almanac is the first manifestation of several almanac books Tasha would write in the future.
Starling Burgess and Thomas Leighton McCready, Jr. were married at her mother's home in Redding, Ct, in 1938. It would also be the young couple's home until they purchased another old rambling house in Webster, NH, in 1945. Tudor planned her wedding carefully and soon published a magazine article about the preparations.
The two elder McCready children were born during the Redding years; two more after moving to New Hampshire. The 1950s were busy years, but the period culminated with the McCready's divorce in 1961. Tasha and her children then officially changed their names to Tudor. Thomas McCready died in London only a few years later. Mrs. Tudor was married to Allan John Woods for a short period in the 1960s.
Oxford University Press, Inc., published Tasha Tudor's first book Pumpkin Moonshine in the fall of 1938. It was a little book, small enough to fit in a child's pocket and related a tale of her husband's niece selecting a pumpkin and creating a jack-o-lantern. Pumpkin Moonshine was the first of nearly 100 books Tasha would illustrate. She was the author of a number of them, especially in her earlier years. Biographical details and depictions of her family life appear throughout her oeuvre, notably in five books written by Thomas L. McCready in the 1950s. She also painted a long series of Christmas cards, art prints and other objects.
Tasha Tudor's work has appealed to a world-wide audience. She presents a nostalgic picture of 19th century New England farm life. Her characters are appropriately dressed for the period. The models often came from Tudor's renowned collection of 19th century costumes. That collection resides in part at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. The rest were sold at a public auction in 2007. Tudor's fans appreciate her many intricate borders. They show the influence of the Dutch painter Willebeek LeMair on Tudor's work. Borders became a mainstay in her art. Dolls, birds and other creatures and, after 1960, corgi dogs are also frequent motifs. The many corgis in her watercolor paintings introduced an international audience of dog owners to her art. Corgis reach their zenith in what Tudor proclaimed her most accomplished book, Corgiville Fair (1971). Tudor also used authentic detail of flowers and antiques throughout her art.
Tasha Tudor garnered Caldecott Honor Awards, first for Mother Goose in 1944. She was honored with the 1971 Regina Medal by the Catholic Library Association, and received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Vermont in 1981.
Tasha Tudor enjoyed several long friendships in her professional life. Her editor Eunice Blake guided the first twenty years of Tudor's book productions. She was edited next by Ann Beneduce for thirty years. Tudor illustrated four books on country lore written by Mary Mason Campbell. Virginia Lightner of Marion, Ohio, brought Tudor to a large mid-western audience. Tudor designed a number of Christmas cards showing the home of friends Donn and Doris Purvis. Their Concord, NH, Cape Cod house was the model for Tudor's final Vermont home. That house was documented in more than a year's photography and three books by photographer Richard Brown. By far, the most enduring and endearing of her friendships was with the photographer Nell Dorr. Dorr created a book Mother and Child, and a 1955 motion picture The Golden Key documenting the life and lore of the McCready family in the 1940s and 1950s. A Dorr photograph of Tudor, the young mother, was included in Edward Steichen's famous exhibition The Family of Man.
Tasha Tudor's books, gifts and original art were sold for several decades by her first patron Edward B. Hills, the Mill Hall, Pa., English professor and shop owner. Visitors came from around the country to buy at his shop. Tudor and her husband Thomas McCready operated the Ginger & Pickles store at their Webster, NH, home in the 1950s. Tudor was a partner in the Indiana Jenny Wren Press (1989-1995), the Richmond, Va. Corgi Cottage Industries (1995-2000) and, with her son Seth, Tasha Tudor and Family (2000- ).
From 1981 through 1996, Elaine Hollabaugh published The L.E.T.T.E.R., a fan magazine devoted to the art and life of Tasha Tudor. Take Joy! was published in New York City for only eight issues, 1996-97, and was devoted to the life style established by Tasha Tudor. By that time, a younger generation was emulating the principles they found in Tudor's books and art.
Tasha Tudor traveled throughout the country for many years delivering talks while drawing sketches, and signing books for her followers. Victoria magazine named her its Artist in Residence in 1996. She has been featured in major exhibitions of her art and life style. There is one biography Drawn from New England, Tasha Tudor by Bethany Tudor (1979) and one bibliography documenting her life's work Tasha Tudor: The Direction of her Dreams by Wm John Hare and Priscilla T. Hare (1998).
After 1990 Tudor's life style was documented in three books by Richard Brown, three books by Harry Davis, and the two videotapes Take Joy! and Take Peace. American, Japanese and Korean television stations created programs dealing with Tudor when she was past eighty years of age.
There will be no public services.
© 2008 Cellar Door Books | |
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