Barbara Cooney (August 6, 1917 – March 10, 2000) was an American writer and illustrator of 110 children's books, published for over sixty years.
She received two Caldecott Medals for her work on Chanticleer and the Fox (1958) and Ox-Cart Man (1979), and a National Book Award for Miss Rumphius (1982).
She started drawing and painting early in life, and was encouraged by her mother but allowed to learn independently.
Cooney graduated from Smith College with a history degree in 1938, but continued working at art, taking classes on black and white drawing, etching, and lithography at the Art Students League of New York in 1940.
Her first professional illustration was for Ake and His World by the Swedish poet Bertil Malmberg, which was published in 1940, a year after she graduated.
Among her many books, Cooney illustrated Ox-Cart Man (1980), written by American poet Donald Hall, for which she received her second Caldecott Medal.
Her last book, Basket Moon (2000), was published six months before her death at a hospital in Portland on March 10, 2000.
Throughout her career, Cooney used a variety of techniques, preferring pen and ink, acrylic paints, and pastels.
It was then that I began my travels, that I discovered, through photography, the quality of light, and that I gradually became able to paint the mood of place.”"I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting....