Dilys Evans, a trailblazing representative of children’s book illustrators, and a fierce champion for recognition of their contributions to the fine arts world, died July 23 at her Santa Fe, N.M. home. She was 88.
Evans was born March 4, 1936, in Wales and grew up in rural England. As a child she was already keenly interested in painting, and especially fond of landscapes. But as she moved through her school years, she realized that village life, with its limited opportunities, was not for her, and took the practical tack of studying nursing, hoping to relocate.
In 1959, after completing her nurse’s training, Evans moved to the U.S., where she landed a job at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York. It was there that she met the American painter Nell Blaine, who was recovering from polio. Evans went on to be a live-in caretaker and companion to Blaine who was then adjusting to using a wheelchair and learning to paint again with her disability. “I was going to art school at night,” Evans recalled to PW in a 2008 interview, “and Nell offered me the job of an assistant to help rehabilitate her and to travel and study.” For the next six years the duo visited galleries and museums throughout Europe. Evans’s formal art education included studying painting and drawing at the Art Students League, the New School, the Riverside Museum in New York City, and she won a fellowship to the Yaddo artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs.
Though she was represented by a Manhattan gallery and exhibited in a few one-woman shows in the 1960s, Evans said in a 2009 lecture at the Society of Illustrators that she was still a starving artist and needed to go back into nursing to earn a living. While on the hunt for more creative work, Evans came upon the opportunity to be an assistant art director at a new children’s magazine called Cricket. She was hired in 1972 to work with art director and illustrator Trina Schart Hyman at Hyman’s New Hampshire studio. “I realized it was a whole other field and would be fun,” Evans said in 2009. “I didn’t realize that I’d be finding a whole other world.”
She admittedly didn’t know much about children’s books at the time. “I was raised in England during World War II,” she told Pasatiempo in 2016. “There weren’t many children’s books around and what we had were precious.”
But at Cricket, Evans had a front-row seat to the work of many talented illustrators, and she further broadened her knowledge of the field by doing research on American children’s books at nearby Dartmouth College. “There’s a fine art form here,” Evans recalled saying to Hyman. “Some of this work is just extraordinary.” Those impressions set Evans on the path to another career change.
By 1978, she had returned to New York City and embarked on her mission to represent children’s book illustrators and get their work seen and appreciated by the wider world. She founded Dilys Evans Fine Illustration, signing up a stellar inaugural roster of eight artists she had met via Cricket.
As her business grew, so did her desire to create an annual exhibition of original picture book art. She worked her publishing and art connections and eventually found a willing display venue in Manhattan’s Master Eagle Gallery. The Original Art exhibit debuted in late 1980, featuring 225 pieces by 120 illustrators of children’s books that had been published that year. The show was an instant success. “It was Christmas time,” Evans said in Pasatiempo, “and we were afraid people weren’t going to come. But 400 or so people showed up at the opening, filling the gallery and spilling out on the sidewalk. The next year, 500 people turned up.”
The Original Art exhibit moved to the Society of Illustrators in 1990 and is still a highly anticipated event in its 44th year. The exhibit also became a juried event and awards a Gold and a Silver medal to the show’s top two pieces, and presents the Dilys Evans Founders Award—a monetary prize Evans established in 2005—to the year’s most promising up-and-coming artist. The show has been celebrated internationally, too. Forty-eight pieces from the 2023 Original Art exhibit were featured at this year’s Bologna Children’s Book Fair.
Another extension of Evans’s work with illustrators—as well as authors and editors—was Lucas-Evans Books, the children’s book packager she formed in 1984 with Barbara Lucas, a former children’s book editor and founder of the Vassar College Summer Institute of Publishing and Writing.
As an author, Evans compiled three children’s poetry anthologies, and in 2008, she wrote Show & Tell: Exploring the Fine Art of Children’s Book Illustration (Chronicle), which focused on the work of 12 contemporary illustrators including Hilary Knight, Betsy Lewin, and Lane Smith.
Throughout all these endeavors, Evans was lauded as an indefatigable, enthusiastic mentor, cheerleader, and champion of the industry she loved. “In the beginning was the book—the raison d’être for the illustration—and it’s no accident that the most successful illustrations are inspired by an outstanding story,” she wrote in a 2012 essay for the Horn Book. “So let us celebrate the fine art of the book, which continues to be a springboard for the imagination, a treasure trove of art, and a place to discover our world and our sense of humor.”
Marcia Leonard, senior advisor to The Original Art exhibit, former children’s book editor, author and consultant, offered this appreciation: “Dilys was that rare combination—a visionary and a pragmatist, an artist and an entrepreneur, someone open to new ideas and yet ready to take charge. I met her in the 1970s, when we both worked for Cricket, she as an art director, I as an editor. I appreciated her perspicacity, patience, and practicality, I loved her sense of humor—and her accent. So, when first she and then I moved to New York City, I reconnected with her. She’d founded Dilys Evans Fine Illustration by then, and when I was laid off from my editorial job because of a company merger, she hired me as an agent. We worked out of her home on Park Avenue South, and each day at 5:30, her cat would come sit on my desk and nudge my face, a reminder that I needed to scratch her behind her ears—and go home. I missed my editorial work, so I moved on fairly quickly, but Dilys and I had a deep bond that never broke. That stood us in good stead when she had the inspiration to create The Original Art exhibit and asked for my help. It was a crazy, joyful, make-it-up-as-you-go experience, and the results were eye-opening and inspiring. I helped her organize the next few shows, then rejoined the team in 2004, and we stayed in close touch when she retired in 2011. After all these years, it’s difficult for me to accept that I’ll never see her again. But I can hear her voice in my head saying, ‘You go, girl. You can get this done.’ ”
Caldecott Medalist David Wiesner, one of Evans’s earliest clients, recalled how he came to work with his agent. “After talking with her on the phone in the spring of 1979—I had graduated from RISD in ’78—I went into New York to meet her. The first thing I did was laugh, and smile, because that was the reaction when you met Dilys. Her personality just jumped out—it was so positive and so upbeat. I said ‘Really? Someone who will take my work around, and I don’t have to go talk to people—which was a mortal fear of mine at the time—this is great, sign me up. And that was it. It was basically the most important professional and personal relationship I had for the next close to 40 years. I didn’t live too far from her and was always over at the apartment. We would have tea and a biscuit and look at what I was doing, talk about what I wanted to do, just hang out. She was my champion, always there at my side, every step of the way.
Dilys would have these parties, and it was like a salon. Hilary Knight was there and Trina Schart Hyman and Margot Tomes and Enrico Arno. I was this kid doing textbook work and early readers at the time, hanging out with these legends, and they were just great. It was a wonderful introduction to the world of children’s books.
Late, late at night, after the Caldecott ceremony for Tuesday, the two of us went off to some little corner of the hotel and had a drink. It was sweet and just a really nice time to go, ‘Hey, that was pretty neat.’ Clearly, she was as thrilled as I was by it.”
Dianne Hess, executive editor at Scholastic, shared this tribute: “Dilys Evans was an intriguing and unique figure in the children’s book world. She was a modern-day Lady of Llangollen, who attracted publishing luminaries and created a kind of Paris in the ’20s salon-like atmosphere with the annual Original Art show celebrations she hosted—and with her summer soirees at her home in the country, where her artists—whom she considered family—came year after year to celebrate their work and share ideas.
I met Dilys when she first came to NYC as an artist’s agent. She appeared one day at Clarion, where I worked at the time, with her artists’ portfolio. She handed me an invitation and a beautiful poster, with art by Troy Howell, to her first Original Art Show! As a new assistant, getting a hand-delivered invitation to an important event was quite special and unforgettable.
Dilys nurtured young talent and had so much respect for people who were just starting out. She became, for me, a wonderful mentor, supporter, and friend. She encouraged me to spread my wings and leave my comfortable Clarion nest to grow and thrive in the field. And she invited me to be on the selection committee for The Original Art exhibit, where I served for five years. We spent months poring over proofs while discussing the art and how it worked with each book as a whole. This was an amazing education and vantage point to have!
Dilys was such a positive and powerful presence, a trailblazer, and a bright light in our field. Her loving and generous spirit was an inspiration and a gift to all who were so fortunate to be touched by her magic.”
Charlotte Albers, now a gardening writer and landscape designer, was Evans’s assistant in the mid 1980s. “As a young college graduate, I loved working with her, seeing her combine her passion for art with the business of negotiating contracts and promoting the careers of her clients,” Albers recalled. “Dilys had a great eye for talent and her portfolio was second to none. She knew everyone in the business. When she started The Original Art show, she created a forum for book illustrations to be viewed as fine art and brought the children’s book community together in a way that hadn’t happened before. It is her great legacy.”
And Emma D. Dryden, children's book editorial and publishing consultant, said: “I met Dilys at an Original Art show my first year in publishing and we had an instant connection—she was so kind, so warm, so funny, and put me at ease right away. She somehow made me feel I was born to be in children's publishing—and subsequently I learned this was her way, encouraging and supporting so many people at the start of their careers in this business, and particularly artists. Dilys’s agency was our first call when Margaret McElderry and I needed an illustrator for a project, and over the years, even if we weren’t working together on a book project, Dilys and I enjoyed all-too-infrequent but wonderful catch-up visits—with cocktails of course!—or phone calls, which she’d always conclude by saying, “To be continued!” And continue our friendship did. She was inimitable, tenacious, and brilliant, a true trailblazer in the field of children’s book illustration, championing children’s book illustration as fine art and recognizing its—and its creators’—true value. I’ll miss Dilys, and will do the only thing I can in her honor: Continue!”
