Chris L. Demarest
Chris's playful, free-form artwork has made it possible for him to combine a career as an illustrator for such magazines as The Atlantic monthly, Harper's Bazaar, Reader's Digest, and Forbes with that of a children's book author-illustrator. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, he attended school in East Hartford and Amherst, Massachusetts, earning a B.F.A. in painting at the University of Massachusetts. Following graduation from college, he worked for a time on the West Coast; then, with portfolio in hand, he returned to the East. His first children's books were published in the early 1980s. Three of the books he wrote and illustrated---No Peas For Nellie, Benedict Finds a Home, and Clemens' Kingdom--were Junior Guild selections. No Peas for Nellie received a Colorado Children's Book Award nomination. Recently Chris's inimitable characters have enlivened the pages of Stephen Krensky's The Missing Mother Goose, Joanna Cole and Stephen Calmenson's The Scary Book, and David Kirby and Allen Woodman's The Cows Are Going to Paris. Chris makes his home in Southport, Connecticut. When he is not working on children's books, he is sometimes found racing cars.
