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 world’s most beloved picture books, Lorraine devoted his 55-year career to Houghton Mifflin Company. There he nurtured many of America’s 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 O’Dell.

“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 author’s 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 Walter’s insistence on taking the long view that has made his contribution to the field of children’s 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 children’s books, he, too, was “lucky enough" to meet Lorraine. “It’s 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 children’s 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 children’s 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 Children’s Books.

To mark his retirement in December 2007, Houghton Mifflin established the Walter H. Lorraine Children’s 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 children’s books for the Fleet Library at RISD. To give the collection a strong start, Houghton Mifflin also contributed several hundred new children’s 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 Children’s Books in our library,” notes RISD’s 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.”