Esphyr Slobodkina (1908-2002), an internationally recognized artist and the author of the children's classic Hats for Sale, was one of the first female American artists to experiment with abstraction and the use of collage in American storybooks. Before arriving to the United States in 1928, she studied painting in Russia and China. Her work is in important museum collections around the country, and she was a founding member of the American Abstract Painters organization.