Happy 90th, Dahlov Ipcar! (Artist/writer, "The Biggest Fis..

She grew up in Greenwich Village, attended Oberlin for a while and now
lives in Georgetown, Maine.

http://www.exitfive.com/dahlov/
(her site, with stunning paintings)

http://www.exitfive.com/dahlov/sevendecades.html
(biography - check her career page, too!)

"My childhood has always been important to me, for it was in many ways
an unusual childhood. My parents, William and Marguerite Zorach, were
both artists. I grew up in Greenwich Village in New York City, in a
home full of modern art, of Fauvism and Cubism, in a creative
atmosphere, where everything in our home was exciting and different
from other peoples' homes. From the beginning, art seemed a natural
part of life. My father would be carving in one large room of our
apartment, wood chips all over the floor, with his finished carved
figures standing about like members of the family. His oil paintings --
marvelous, mysterious, semi-cubistic, and colorful -- hung on the
walls. My mother would be painting in the adjoining room, which was
both studio and living room. I could not have imagined a life without
paintings on the walls, and color everywhere. Our walls were canary
yellow; Adam and Eve were painted on one wall, with the snake winding
down the tree. The floors were b_parent vermilion, and covered with
rugs that my mother designed and hooked herself. She created large
batik hangings and bedspreads, and every piece of furniture was
decorated, each chair rung a different color."


http://www.exitfive.com/dahlov/bibliography.html
(Booklist. Between 1947 and 1986, she wrote 38 books for children,
mostly about animals - one is based on the 1893 folk song "The Cat
Came Back" - plus three YA novels. She also illustrated Margaret Wise
Brown's "The Little Fisherman.")

You can read the lyrics for the song here, if you like:
http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/c020.html
(clearly, some verses were written much later)

http://www.courthousegallery.com/images/picturebook/Ipcar_BiggestFish_sm2.jpg
(Picture from Ipcar's 1972 "The Biggest Fish in the Sea," a book I
remember well. In it, a boy named Tino gets mad when his family laughs
at the fish he caught, so he starts to ask each fish he catches if
it's the biggest in the sea. When each says no, he throws it back.
When he does land the biggest, the consequences turn out to be even
worse than you might guess - in a fantastic way. However, it all ends
happily, with a firm moral about gratuitous fishing.)

Synopsis of "A Dark Horn Blowing":
"Stolen away from her husband and newborn child, Nora is transported
to the magical realm of Erland where she is assigned the task of
nursing the Erl King's sickly infant, who must be able to walk before
Nora is allowed to return to her own world."
(This has 15 mixed reviews at you-know-where.)

http://www.exitfive.com/dahlov/cartwright_bio.html
(article, with photos, about her 90th birthday and the related
exhibit in Freeport, Maine - it runs till late December)

http://entertainment.mainetoday.com/art/051106ipcar.shtml
(long 2005 article)

http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=en&q=dahlov+ipcar&btn...earch+I
(some paintings)



Lenona.