politicians, including Georgia’s Senator Herman Talmadge, South Carolina’s Senator Strom Thurmond, and the State Department illustrate the opposition that was building against the entire concept of the pavilion. A flurry of letters and telegrams between U.S. They felt that we were exposing private domestic issues in a way that put the southern states in a bad light. There was a fair amount of concern among southern senators as the opening of the Fair approached. In the last section, which portrayed the goal or ideal solution, Leo included a large photograph of a racially mixed group of children playing Ring Around the Rosy. The topics included segregation, urban blight, and the wasting of natural resources. The pavilion was composed of three sections: the problems, the progress, and the goals, each contained within its own physical structure one leading to the next. While working for Luce at Fortune, Leo was asked to design the little pavilion, which was to be installed next to the main United States pavilion. The project had been conceived, and supported, by Henry Luce, in collaboration with the State Department. Focus groups and studies were set up to determine how effective the plan would be in diverting the anticipated criticism. would create a small pavilion called “Unfinished Business.” The theory was that, by publically disclosing our flaws, we would sidestep some anticipated criticism from other countries specifically, Russia. It was decided that, in addition to our regular pavilion, the U.S. The world was watching us and taking note of our domestic problems and the way in which we handled them. would be heavily criticized for our segregation policies and other restrictive national issues-such as the Little Rock Crisis in 1957, in, which nine students in Little Rock, Ark., had been prevented from attending high school until President Eisenhower sent in federal troops. Members of the United States delegation were concerned that the U.S. The 1950s were the pinnacle of his career as a graphic designer.ĭuring the mid-cold war climate, plans were underway for a United States pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. He maintained his own studio and had clients such as the American Cancer Society, the Container Corporation of America, and Olivetti. He designed the prototype for Sports Illustrated in 1954, and his iconic design of the catalog for The Family of Man exhibit (Museum of Modern Art, 1955) is known by multiple generations. He was one of the founders of the 1949 International Design Conference in Aspen-and interestingly enough, returned as a speaker at the 40th International Design Conference, which focused on children. And in 1946 he designed the “Never Underestimate the Power of a Woman” campaign for Ladies Home Journal. He worked as the art director of Fortune magazine, part of Henry Luce’s Time Life magazine empire, from 1948 until 1959. Leo’s professional life was full and successful, and he was lauded with prestigious commissions. The more interesting story of where Little Blue and Little Yellow came from, and what inspired all of Leo’s later books, occurred to me only very recently. In his memoir Between Worlds, Leo contended that he was actually entertaining his fellow passengers in the process of keeping me and Pippo occupied. Over the years, the story of Little Blue and Little Yellow’s creation was told so many times, and in so many languages, that it took on a life of its own, morphing into a tale of two unruly kids on a train, and the grandfather desperate to keep them from bothering the other passengers. His friend, Fabio Coen, who later became an editor at Pantheon Books, saw the mock-up over the weekend and they decided to publish Little Blue and Little Yellow. The positive response we gave to his story was enough to inspire him to recreate it with some construction paper in his studio at home. He entertained us by tearing colored paper from a magazine that he had in his briefcase to create the story of Little Blue and Little Yellow. At the time, Leo was an art director at Time Life, and he took us on the commuter train out of Grand Central Station in New York to spend the weekend with him and our grandmother, Nora, in Greenwich, Conn. The traditional story of how Leo came to write his first book for children involves my brother, Pippo, and me in 1959. I am frequently asked about what inspired Leo to write his stories. My grandfather, Leo Lionni, wrote and illustrated 40 children’s books during his “retirement years.” His literary legacy includes four Caldecott Honors for excellence in illustration as well as dozens of other prizes, an elementary school curriculum based on his books described in Vivian Gussin Paley’s The Girl with the Brown Crayon, inclusions in best books lists, and countless praise from teachers, librarians, parents, and kids.
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