Eric Carle

Eric Carle was born in Syracuse, New York, to German immigrant parents and relocated with his family to Stuttgart, Germany, at age six. Surviving the devastation of World War II, he studied graphic art at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart before returning to New York City in 1952 with forty dollars in his pocket, securing work as a graphic designer for The New York Times and later in advertising.

Carle turned to children's books in the late 1960s, creating his signature collage style by hand-painting tissue papers with acrylic paints and cutting them into vibrant shapes. In 1969, he published The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which sold over 55 million copies worldwide. In 2002, he co-founded the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts, to celebrate picture-book illustration from around the world.