Maurice Bernard Sendak is an American author and artist of children's literature. He is well known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, released in 1963.
Sendak started life in Brooklyn, New York to Polish Jewish immigrant parents Sarah and Philip Sendak, a dressmaker. Sendak has described his childhood as a terrible situation due in part to much of his extended family dying in the holocaust, which exposed him at an early age to death and the concept of mortality. He decided to become an artist after viewing Walt Disney's movie Fantasia at the age of twelve; however, his love of works came at an early age when he developed health problems and was confined to his bed. One of his first professional commissions was to create window displays for the toy store F. Schwarz. His illustrations were first released in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. He spent much of the 1950s working as an artist for books for kids, before beginning to write his own novels.
(Maurice Sendak photo #2)
Sendak gained international acclaim after composing and illustrating Where the Wild Things Are, although the book's depictions of fanged monsters concerned some parents when it was first published, as his characters were somewhat grotesque in appearance. Sendak's seeming attraction to the forbidden or nightmarish aspects of children's fantasy have made him a subject of controversy. The monsters in the book were based on relatives who would come to weekly dinners.
Maurice Sendak
