Ruth Rosekrans Hoffman

Ruth Olive Rosekrans Hoffman (7 January 1926 - 26 September 2007) was an American children's book illustrator and painter, known as Rosekrans Hoffman professionally.

Early life Ruth Olive Rosekrans was born at her parents’ home on 7 January 1926 in Denton, Nebraska. She was the second child of James Charles, a contractor, and Pearl D Rosekrans, née Hocking.

She began drawing at the age of three or four. When she was seven she contracted osteomyelitis, a bone infection only treatable at that time by painful bone drains. She had to stay in a full body cast, with only her arms and hands free, for 18 months. It was during this period that she began to develop her artistic abilities. including Tillie the Toiler, Dick Tracy, Mutt and Jeff and Popeye.

She said the experience “gave me a new perspective on life… in bed in the body cast, horizontal, I saw things I wouldn’t ordinarily see. I wasn’t a child looking up, but more like a part of the land. From my prone position, I used to eye my food like an explorer surveying the horizon. Piles of mashed potatoes took on the proportions of mountains against the skyline. Undersides of chins, nostrils, palms jumped out at me. I studied expressions, the details of wallpaper, and tiny hairs peeking out of people’s ears.”

She would spend many more months in partial casts, a wheelchair, and homemade braces that her father invented to enable her to become more mobile. She used a walking stick for the rest of her life.

Education She recovered sufficiently to attend Denton School District 136, She was a member of Delta Phi Delta, a national art honorary society. She gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1948, after which she took graduate work at Penn State. She spent her time painting, and studying with Japanese-American painter, photographer and printmaker Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In 1952 they were living on Hall Street, Brooklyn, New York.

By 1955 she and Cadwallader had divorced and she married Robert Hoffman in New York City. They bonded over a shared love of jazz. During this period she wrote “a lot of letters” to the City Council encouraging them to make buildings more accessible. About this endeavor she said, “So many buildings were built without access by ramp or rail for the handicapped. I think it was the feeling of those times that the handicapped should be put away out of sight.” In an interview from 1978 she "takes credit" for initiating a change in the city's views on accessibility. where she became active in local community life. She was a member of Denton Community Historical Society (DCHS), and a supporter of the Nebraska Literary Heritage Association, the Junior League of Lincoln, Lincoln City Public Library's Heritage Room Her agent was Helen Wohlberg of Kirchoff/Wohlberg Inc. New York.

Hoffman was always careful to say that she was an artist, and not an illustrator. To her, this meant that the integrity of her artistic vision came first. ‘Washed-out’ shades tended to dominate her illustrations – dusty browns, mauves, ochres and dying yellows; she called them “old world” colours.

She advised two-term US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser on his first children's book Bag in the Wind (finally published 2010) after it received a “lukewarm” reception from children's book publishers. Her advice was to remove much of Kooser's descriptive text, and leave it to the illustrator to create the imagery.

Collections and exhibitions Her work is in the following collections

Her work was exhibited in the following venues: Haydon Art Center, Lincoln, Nebraska Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Nebraska Bennett Martin Public Library, Nebraska Elder Gallery, Nebraska Wesleyan University Sweet Sister Ella (1982)

Illustrator Walter in Love (1973) by Alicen White Where Did That Naughty Little Hamster Go? (1974) by Patty Wolcott Alexandra the Rock Eater: An Old Rumanian Tale Retold (1978) by Dorothy Van Woerkom – nominated for a Caldecott Medal An Egg Is To Sit On (1978) by Christine Tanz My Mother Sends Her Wisdom (1979) by Louise McClenathan Go to Bed! A Book of Bedtime Poems (1979) by Lee Bennett Hopkins Elves, Fairies & Gnomes: Poems (1980) selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins Come Home, Wilma (1980) by Mitchell Sharmat The Case of the Missing Hat: Starring Jim Henson’s Muppet's (1982) by Greg Williams The Easter Pig (1982) by Louise McClenathan The Truth About the Moon (1983) by Clayton Bess How Do You Make an Elephant Float? And Other Delicious Riddles (1983) by Lee Bennett Hopkins Creepy, Crawly Critter Riddles (1986) by Joanne E. Bernstein and Paul Cohen Whitman Three Sisters (1986) by Audrey Wood The Horrible Holidays (1988) by Audrey Wood Sue Patch and the Crazy Clocks (1989) by Ann Tompert Jet Black Pick-Up Truck (1990) by Pat Lakin The Best Cat Suit of All (1991) by Sylvia Cassedy Jane Yolen’s Mother Goose Songbook (1992) by Jane Yolen, musical arrangements Adam Stemple Where Do Little Girls Grow? (1993) by Milly Jane Limmer Jane Yolen’s Old MacDonald Songbook (1994) by Jane Yolen Another New Day (1995) by Brian Potter and Wayne Green Pignic: An Alphabet in Rhyme (1996) by Anne Miranda Mr Wink (1996) by Claire Daniel and Elfrieda H. Hiebert Delilah Drinkwater and the Clever Cloud (1997) by Marcia Vaughan

Textbooks Hoffman produced many textbook illustrations “because texts make more money.” She worked with publishers including Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill Education, Open Court, Scholastic and Zaner-Bloser.

Other She created a Christmas card each year, many of which are stored in the History Nebraska collection, in Lincoln, Nebraska. She also designed a poster for New York's Children's Book Council Anytime, Anyplace, Any Book campaign in 1981.

Awards and honours Caldecott Medal nominee for Alexandra the Rock Eater (1978) Established Pearl Rosekrans Memorial Scholarship in honour of her mother, awarded to an art student at Nebraska Wesleyan University (1978) The Nebraska Literary Heritage Association sponsored a dinner honouring Hoffman in the Rotunda of the Nebraska State Capitol (1983)