Lot 1266: ROJANKOVSKY, FEODOR STEPANOVICH. 1891-1970.- "He played old tunes and new tunes,"

"He played old tunes and new tunes," watercolor, ink and pencil, 215 x 235 mm. Matted and framed. Published: The Big Elephant by Kathryn and Byron Jackson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1949), double-page spread. WITH: a copy of the book. Tall 8vo. 28 pp. Original color lithograph laminated boards. Some soiling, corners bumped. Feodor Rojankovsky was one of the most versatile of Russian émigré commercial artists of his generation. Born in Latvia, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture and served in the Russian Imperial Army during World War I. He was conscripted into the White Army in 1919, then imprisoned in Poland. After his release, he eventually settled in Paris where he supported himself by doing advertising and erotica as well as stunning children's books for Esther Averell's Domino Press and Paul Faucher's Albums du Père Castor. In 1941, he fled when the Germans invaded France and came to the United States where he became one of the most important illustrators of Little Golden Books. He won the 1956 Caldecott Medal for Frog Went A'Courtin' .