David Wiesner

April 5, 2022

The 2022 Chase Lecture Welcomes David Wiesner

Childhood is such an impressionable time and the things children see, hear, and feel can have a lasting impact. Wiesner saw an incredible number of images growing up that greatly influenced the art that he made as a child and the books he made as an adult. Those images ranged across the history of art, which he discovered at his local library, to movies, cartoons, and comics that came into his house. But nothing had quite as potent an effect as discovering surrealism – in particular, Salvador Dalí's most famous painting, "The Persistence of Memory."

In his talk, Wiesner traced the connections between these childhood influences and the body of his work using copious images, old photos, and video and sound clips.

David Wiesner is a NYT-bestselling author and illustrator. He won the Caldecott Medal three times – for Tuesday in 1992, The Three Pigs in 2002, and Flotsam in 2006. Three other books of his, Sector 7, Free Fall, and Mr. Wuffles! were named Caldecott Honor Books. In 2008 David was a finalist for the Han Christian Andersen Award. He is currently on the faculty of The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art.

Video Recording

There is no video recording of the Chase Lecture with David Weisner.

View photos from the 2022 Chase Lecture with David Wiesner