2008 Award for Professional Achievement Walter Lorraine [RISD 52, Advertising Design] Each year at Commencement the RISD Alumni Association recognizes one or more individuals for outstanding achievement, service and leadership to the alumni community. In 2008 the Awards Committee selected Walter Lorraine [RISD 52, Advertising Design] for its distinguished Award for Professional Achievement.
The legendary editor of some of the worlds most beloved picture books, Lorraine devoted his 55-year career to Houghton Mifflin Company. There he nurtured many of Americas great authors and illustrators RISD alumni among them and helped make characters such as George and Martha and Lyle the Crocodile come to life. His unwavering commitment to creativity and invention won him the loyalty of such bestselling authors and artists as RISD alumni David Macaulay [RISD 69, Architecture] (The
Way Things Work, Castle, Mosque, Black and White) and Chris Van Allsburg [RISD MFA 75, Sculpture] (The
Polar Express, Jumanji), along with Lois Lowry, James Marshall and Scott ODell.
In his typically modest and always straightforward way, Walter Lorraine defines his primary job as one of supporting creative people so they can do their best work, Macaulay notes. He has always operated on the deceptively simple belief that if a book has good content and it is produced with passion, it will succeed over the long run and over the long run, it is the body of work that truly defines an authors success. Long-term thinking about anything these days is increasingly rare, especially in any area of commerce, where the need for immediate gratification plagues all aspects of the marketplace. It is precisely Walters insistence on taking the long view that has made his contribution to the field of childrens literature both unique and enduring. Not only has it resulted in the creation of an extensive and highly respected backlist, but it has also nurtured countless creative partnerships as well as long-lasting personal friendships between this remarkable publisher and those of us who have been lucky enough to work with him.
Van Allsburg notes that when he began writing and illustrating childrens books, he, too, was lucky enough" to meet Lorraine. Its unusual for artists to find individuals who represent the economic interest of their company but are still willing to take the side of art to defend the idiosyncratic and champion work that is not explicitly commercial, he says. In the dozen or so books I worked on with Walter Lorraine, I was never once asked to contemplate a change based on commercial considerations or the need to please an audience. He considered my work and the work of all his authors/illustrators, as art, not [something] to be manipulated or teased into a commercial form for the largest possible audience.
Ultimately rising to the rank of vice president, Lorraine
established his own imprint, Walter Lorraine Books, in 1995. Over the years,
he helped scores of RISD alumni break into the childrens book field,
and just last year he worked on new books with alumni Taylor Morrison 94
IL and Lynn Munsinger 77 IL. Lorraine is also one of only five editors
whose books received the two highest awards for childrens literature
in the same year the Newbery and Caldecott medals and two books that he
illustrated himself (I
Will Tell You of a Town by Alastair Reid and Dear
Rat by Julia Cunningham) were selected as New York
Times Best Illustrated
Childrens Books.
To mark his retirement
in December 2007, Houghton Mifflin established the Walter H. Lorraine
Childrens Book Fund at RISD in honor of his long and illustrious career
as an educator, artist, illustrator, businessman and mentor. This generous endowment allows
for the acquisition of the best childrens books for the Fleet
Library at RISD. To give the collection a strong start, Houghton Mifflin
also contributed several hundred new childrens books and Lorraine designed
a special bookplate to mark each book that becomes part of this permanent
collection.
I am thrilled at the establishment of the Walter H. Lorraine Collection of Childrens Books in our library, notes RISDs Director of Library Services Carol Terry. An endowed fund to support acquisitions in this area is excellent news, and we are pleased to be able to honor Walter Lorraine in this way.
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