9.21.2009

See and Say by Antonio Frasconi

See and Say 1

See and Say by Antonio Frasconi. A Voyager Book. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., NY. 1955.

Fantastic picture book featuring brilliant woodcuts by artist Antonio Frasconi. What's so cool about this book is the fact that it's in four languages, with the word for each object given in English (printed in black), Italian (blue), French (red), and Spanish (green).

In the intro to the book, Frasconi writes:

Since I was brought up in a home where more than one language was spoken, I was given at an early age the knowledge that there is more than one nation and one way of speaking in our world. The idea that there are many nationalities speaking many languages is to me one the most important for a child to understand.

See and Say has grown from this belief and from my experience and personal need in living with and teaching my son Pablo.


There's no one place to learn about Fasconi, but here are a few links to check out about the man:

Antonio Frasconi on Artcyclopedia
Antonio Frasconi at Davidson's Galleries
Google Image Search for Antonio Frasconi

The dude was born in 1919 and is still living at age 90. Awesome. This was his first children's book.

All images © Antonio Frasconi.

See and Say 2

See and Say 3

See and Say 4

See and Say 5

See and Say 6

See and Say 7

8 comments:

  1. Oh, I love. I have a few of his books... now I have to remember to dig them out! Happy Monday!

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  2. I'm so glad you posted this. Such beautiful work.

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  3. Wow - that is so great! Excellent find, Ward. Thanks for sharing.

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  4. Thanks for posting this. I'm glad my dad's work continues to be appreciated. I do have one request. Could you put a "©AF" somewhere on this post. It not in the public domain yet!
    Thanks!
    Miguel Frasconi

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  5. Miguel, thank you very much for commenting here on my blog! Very honored. I went ahead and added the copyright symbol in the post, as well as in all the images in my Flickr.

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  6. Beautiful. Thank you for the scans.

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  7. Wow, so beautiful! Thanks for the discovery!

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