Caldecott, Randolph

Caldecott, Randolph (b Chester, 22 Mar. 1846; d St Augustine, Fla., 12 Feb. 1886).
English illustrator, painter, and occasional sculptor. With Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway he ‘formed the triumvirate of great British children's illustrators of the late Victorian period…but his drawings were far less rigid than Crane's and far more humorous than Greenaway's’ (Oxford Companion to Children's Literature). His output was large, in spite of his short career and the ill health that led to his early death; he worked as a bank clerk until he was 26 and he died aged only 39 on a sketching visit to America (he suffered from rheumatic fever and encountered a surprisingly cold winter in Florida). From 1938 the American Library Association has awarded the Caldecott Medal to ‘the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published…during the preceding year’.