The directory «Plots»

Van Allsburg Chris
(b. 1949)
«The Polar Express»

Chris was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 18th, 1949, the second child of Doris Christiansen Van Allsburg and Richard Van Allsburg. When Chris was born, his family lived in an old farm house next door to the large brick creamery building. It was a very old house that, like the little house in Virginia Lee Burton’s story, had once looked over farmland. But by 1949, the house was surrounded by buildings and other houses. Chris’s father ran the dairy with Chris’s three uncles after his grandfather Peter retired.

Chris went to junior and senior high school in East Grand Rapids. He didn’t take art classes during this time. His interests and talents seemed to be more in the area of math and science. Because of the high level of academic achievement at East Grand Rapids High School, and because each year a number of students chose to go to the University of Michigan, they sent an admissions officer to Chris’s high school. The admissions officer would interview students and admit them on the spot if their grades and test scores satisfied the school’s requirements.

Chris went to the University of Michigan in the fall of 1967. Much to his surprise, art school did not mean a few art courses a week. It meant art classes pretty much all the time. At first he felt very much out of place because the other students had so much more experience than he had. But he discovered in sculpture a place where he could use the skills and craftsmanship he’d developed as a boy building model cars and boats. He majored in sculpture at the University of Michigan, where he learned bronze casting, wood carving, resin molding and other techniques. He graduated in 1972 and went to graduate school at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to continue his study of sculpture.

In 1975, after earning his M.F.A. degree at RISD, Chris set up a sculpture studio in Providence, RI. He also married Lisa Morrison, whom he met at the University of Michigan four years earlier. Lisa was also an art student who had studied education and had become an elementary school art teacher in the Providence school system. Chris first exhibited his sculpture in New York City in 1977 at the Alan Stone Gallery. He exhibited elsewhere in New England, and though sculpture was his primary interest, he had begun drawing pictures at night in a little room in his and Lisa’s apartment. He did not think of these drawings as very important, but others did. Alan Stone showed two of them to a curator from The Whitney Museum of Art, where they were exhibited in 1978. Lisa, who used picture books when teaching her 3rd grade students, encouraged Chris to consider making illustrations for a story book. A friend of Lisa’s, illustrator and author David Macaulay agreed with Lisa that the kind of pictures Chris was making could be effective book illustration.

Macaulay encouraged Lisa to show Chris’s work to his editor, Walter Lorraine, at Houghton Mifflin Company in Boston. Mr. Lorraine responded positively to the pictures Lisa showed him, but rather than enlist Chris to produce pictures for someone else’s story, Mr. Lorraine encouraged Chris to think about stories of his own.

Though still involved in making sculptures, Chris set aside some time and created the story and pictures that became The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, published in 1979. Since then, Chris has written and illustrated 15 books and has illustrated three others that were written by Mark Helprin. In 1980, he was awarded the Caldecott Honor Medal for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.

Chris is also the winner of two Caldecott Medals, for Jumanji and The Polar Express, and was the recipient of the Boston Globe Horn Book Award for The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. Additionally, he received the Boston Globe Honor for The Polar Express as well as The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. Chris has also been awarded the Regina Medal for lifetime achievement in children's literature. In 1982, Jumanji won the National Book Award and in 1996, it was made into a popular feature film.

In 1991, Chris and Lisa became parents when their daughter Sophia was born. In 1995, their second daughter, Anna was born. Chris lives in Providence RI and works in his 3rd floor studio. For recreation and amusement, he rides his bike and plays tennis. He is not really the master of any instruments, but can entertain his children by producing simple tunes playing a recorder through his nose.

Netherlands, 2004, The Polar Express

Netherlands, 2004.11.25, Haag. Snow