Jerry Pinkney - Literary Works

Literary Works

At a very young age Pinkney became interested in drawing. He had two older brothers who enjoyed drawing comics books and photo magazines and he began to follow in their footsteps. Soon he began to realize that he would rather sit and draw instead of doing other things. While in junior high school Pinkney worked at a newsstand and sketched people as they passed by. This is where Pinkney met cartoonist John Liney who encouraged him to draw and exposed him to making a living from drawing. Pinkney went on and graduated from Dobbins Vocational School and attended Philadelphia Museum College of Art. He later moved to Boston where he worked at a greeting card company and went on to open Kaleidoscope Studio with two other artists. He eventually opened his own studio, Jerry Pinkney Studio, and later moved to New York. Mr. Pinkney has always had an interest in diversity and many of his children’s books celebrate multicultural and African-American themes. Mr. Pinkney still lives in New York and has been an art professor at the University of Delaware, Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and State University of New York at Buffalo. Over the years he has given workshops and been a guest speaker at universities and art schools across the country.