Philadelphia illustrator Charles Santore stated out doing editorial illustrations — individual pieces that accompanied articles in periodicals — but once he experienced an assignment to illustrate a children’s book, a new edition of Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1985, he realized that he much preferred the extended thematic possibilities of book illustration, with multiple images for a single story.
Since then , Santore has contributed his beautifully realized watercolor illustrations to fresh versions of stories like The Wizard of Oz, The Little Mermaid, Aesop’s Fables, The Night Before Christmas, The Velveteen Rabbit and Snow White, among others. The editions with his illustrations have become so popular and beloved, they are essentially modern classics.
I’ve wanted to do a post on Santore’s work for a number of years, but as far as I can determine, he has never had an official web presence.
Times change, however, as does the internet, and I can now at least point you to examples of his work, even if I’m largely dependent on Pinterest boards to do so.
There is a brief interview with Santore on the Library of Congress National Book Festival site, and an account of his talk at the Philadelphia Sketch Club in 2013 on Achilles Portfolio.
