Zhenya Gay


Zhenya Gay was an American writer and illustrator, best known for her children's books.

Early life and education

Eleanor Byrnes was born in 1906 in Norwood, Massachusetts, the daughter of Charles W. Byrnes and Alice Bell Smith Byrnes. She attended Columbia University, where she studied with Solon Borglum and Winold Reiss.

Career

As a young woman, Gay created movie posters, newspaper advertisements, and costume designs for theater productions. She spent several years traveling and living in Europe, Mexico, and Central America. Her illustrations for The Poems of Catullus "caught the bacchanalian decadence" of the texts, according to one reviewer. In 1954, she left New York City for the Catskill Mountains, and lived on a farm in Saugerties, New York. In addition to her book illustrations, Gay also created standalone artworks, including aquatints, lithographs, and etchings, and wrote poetry and stories for children, often featuring animal characters, especially cats.
In 1941 Gay appeared as "guest story teller" at a children's library in Springfield, Massachusetts. She spoke at the Greenville Public Library in South Carolina in 1956. In 1961, she met with an audience of children at the Napa County Library in California.

Selected works

Gay's works are held in the permanent collections of several museums, including the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Seattle Art Museum. The Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota holds much of her work, as does the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.

As author and illustrator

  • Pancho and His Burro
  • The Shire Colt
  • Town Cats
  • Sakimura
  • Whistlers' Van
  • Manuelito of Costa Rica
  • Look!
  • Jingle Jangle
  • Wonderful Things!
  • Bits & Pieces
  • Small One
  • The Dear Friends
  • The Nicest Time of Year
  • I'm Tired of Lions
  • ''Who's Afraid?''

    As illustrator

  • Anatole France, The Crimes of Sylvestre Bonnard
  • The Poems of Catullus
  • Frances Clarke Sayers, Mr. Tidy Paws
  • Oscar Wilde, The Ballad of Reading Gaol
  • Agnes Fisher, Once upon a time; folk tales, myths and legends of the United Nations
  • Christine Von Hagen, Chico of the Andes
  • Arkady Gaidar, Timur and his Gang
  • Irving R. Melbo, Young neighbors in South America
  • Irma Simonton Black, Toby, a Curious Cat
  • Alfred Lewis, Treasure in the Andes
  • Joseph E. Chipperfield, Beyond the Timberland Trail
  • Miriam E. Mason, The Major and His Camels
  • Miriam E. Mason, ''The Sugarbush Family''

    Personal life

From 1927 until the 1940s, Gay was in a relationship with Jan Gay, a children's book writer and sexuality researcher. Zhenya Gay died in 1978, at the age of 76.