Author and visual artist Robert Burleigh, widely acclaimed for his poetic picture book nonfiction and biographies of such subjects as Edward Hopper, Langston Hughes, and Charles Lindbergh, died on January 12 in Grand Haven, Mich., of prostate cancer. He was 90.
Robert Burleigh was born January 4, 1936 in Chicago. He graduated with a B.A. from DePauw University in Indiana in 1957 and in 1962 earned an M.A. in humanities from the University of Chicago.
Throughout the 1960s in Chicago he honed his writing and fine art skills by working as a community newspaper reporter while also crafting poetry and art reviews as well as experimenting with his own sculpting and painting. He additionally worked as a writer and artist for the Society for Visual Education, a multimedia company that produced filmstrips, cassette tapes, and other materials for classroom use.
By the early 1980s he was making art in earnest under the pseudonym Burleigh Kronquist, which incorporated his mother’s maiden name. He began sculpting pieces out of found materials, and soon after, turned his hand to painting. Since the late 1980s his artwork has appeared in both group and solo exhibitions in galleries in Chicago, New York, Portland, and other cities around the country. Burleigh was also passionate about music and throughout his life wrote songs and played piano for fun, according to his family.
Burleigh published his first picture book biography, A Man Named Thoreau, illustrated by Lloyd Bloom (Atheneum) in 1985 and it proved the launch of a new career. In the 1990s and early 2000s he was particularly prolific, writing texts on a variety of subjects ranging from sports and music to survival stories, and teaming with a rich roster of illustrators that included Raúl Colón, Barry Root, Mike Wimmer, and Ed Young, among others. The 2003 title Into the Woods: John James Audobon Lives His Dream (Atheneum) marked his first project with illustrator Wendell Minor, with whom he would go on to do a number of subsequent books and also develop a close friendship.
In all Burleigh created more than 50 books for young readers, most recently Winter Magic, illustrated by Minor (Little, Brown/Ottaviano, 2024). Accolades for his work have included the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award in 1992 for Flight: The Journey of Charles Lindbergh, and the 2011 Illinois Prairie State Award, recognizing him as the state’s children’s book author of the year.
On his website biography, Burleigh explained some of the driving philosophy behind his books: “The hard facts—historical and biographical—of my subjects always remain important, and are woven into the narrative,” he wrote. “But beyond that, I want the books to convey the feeling of immediacy, of being there—whether there is flying an airplane, hitting a baseball, or painting a picture.”
Illustrator Wendell Minor recalled the dynamic he and Burleigh developed. “What I liked about our relationship is that I could come up with a subject, like Edward Hopper, and say, ‘What do you think? Should we do a book in Edward Hopper?’ He’d say, ‘Let me think about it,’ and then he’d write something and send me a manuscript. And there we were. I discovered very quickly that that was such a unique relationship. I don’t think I met another author and illustrator who worked as closely as we did.
He was a multi-faceted author, too. He was also a painter, a musician, and he had a wide scope of knowledge on just about everything. So, we’d have these long conversations, and out of those conversations would come the idea for a book. I think we only met face-to-face twice, but I’ve got a long list of phone bills. Even though we were separated by miles, we became the very best of friends.”
Rubin Pfeffer of Aevitas Creative Management, former president of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and SVP and group publisher of Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, was Burleigh’s agent. He offered this remembrance: “I enjoyed an enriching relationship with Bob that spans more than 50 years. He was curious, clever, poetic, and industrious. His books, lined up together, are a generous bookshelf, offering young readers a first encounter with enduring ideas, great minds, and quiet joys of the world. At the heart of Bob’s work was his loving partnership with his poet wife Jenny Roberts—whose uncredited voice and insight were woven throughout his books and deeply cherished by him.”
And Christy Ottaviano, VP and publisher of her eponymous imprint at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, has worked with Burleigh since the mid 1990s, when she was an assistant editor at Henry Holt. She paid tribute to her longtime author: “Bob had a great ear for poetry and all of his books were infused with an infectious cadence, rhythm, and rhyme pattern. He loved taking impressive subjects like Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thoreau, Edward Hopper, and the Wright Brothers and making them accessible to children through his lyrical prose.
One of my favorite memories of Bob is when he came to visit when I worked in the Flatiron building. A man of great style, he showed up in a long black overcoat that resembled a big cape. He looked like a superhero! I will always remember him that way—larger than life both in talent and in heart.”
