Margot Zemach

Margot Zemach (November 30, 1931- November 21, 1989) was an American illustrator of more than forty children's books, many of them adaptations of folk tales from around the world.

Margot Zemach was born in Los Angeles. When she was growing up there during the Great Depression, she drew to make people laugh but never had enough paper. She studied at the Los Angeles County Art Institute and, on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1955-1956, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, Austria.

In 1957 she married Harvey Fichstrom and her illustrating career began when he urged her to do children's books. They collaborated on their first book in 1959. She did the illustrations and he, under the pseudonym Harve Zemach, did the text. In all, they collaborated on 13 books, including the 1974 Caldecott Medal winning Duffy and the Devil.

The Zemachs had four daughters including Kaethe, also an author and illustrator of children's books. Margot Zemach died in Berkeley, California on May 21, 1989 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also called Lou Gehrig's disease).

References

• Contemporary Authors Online, Thomson Gale, 2007.
• Margot Zemach Collection in the Children's Literature Research Collections at the University of Minnesota

External links

• Margot Zemach in "Embracing the Child"