Clement, Gary

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Clement, Gary

Personal

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; married; wife's name Gill; children: two. Education: York University, B.F.A., 1986, M.A., 1990.

Addresses

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator. National Post, Canada, staff cartoonist, 1998—. Exhibitions: Work included in group exhibitions at Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 1994, 1995; MEG Gallery, Toronto, 1997; Blackwood Gallery, University of Toronto, Mississauga, 1997; and MEAT, Toronto, then Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Solo exhibitions include at Loop Gallery, 2001.

Awards, Honors

Murray Koffler Founding Chairman's Purchase Award for Best Drawing, Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, 1994; Drawing Award, Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibition, 1995; Governor General's Award for Illustration shortlist, 1995, and Louis Lockshin Memorial Award for Children's Literature, Canadian Jewish Book Award Committee, 1996, both for Just Stay Put; National Magazine Award Gold Medal in Graphic Design, Advertising and Design Club of Canada, 1997; Governor General's Award for illustration, 1999, for The Great Poochini; Gold Medal for Poster Design, Advertising and Design Club of Canada, 2000; Ten Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year designation, Time magazine, 2007; honored by Ontario History and Social Sciences Teachers Association, 2007.

Writings

SELF-ILLUSTRATED

(Adaptor) Just Stay Put: A Chelm Story (based on a story by Isaac Bashevis Singer), Groundwood Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

The Great Poochini, Douglas & McIntyre (Buffalo, NY), 1999.

ILLUSTRATOR

Sylvia Funston, It's All in Your Brain, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1994, published as A Kid's Guide to the Brain, Greey de Pencier (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1994.

Niko Scharer, Looking for Holes, Monarch (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995.

Troon Harrison, Don't Dig So Deep, Nicholas!, Maple Tree Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1997.

Roberta Lewis, Student Design Yearbook, Basement Publishing, 1999.

(With Linda Wolfsgruber) Celia Barker Lottridge, Stories from the Bible, Groundwood Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2005.

Aaron Shepard, One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!: A Very Grimm Fairy Tale, Atheneum (New York, NY), 2006.

Cary Fagan, Ten Old Men and a Mouse, Tundra Books (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2007.

Contributor of illustrations to National Post, Saturday Night, Toronto Life Fashion, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Time, Fortune, Civilization, Mother Jones, House & Garden, Chicago Tribune, and Courier International.

Sidelights

Cartoonist Gary Clement is known through three primary venues: his art has been exhibited throughout Canada, his political cartoons appear in a wide variety of North American periodicals, and he has illustrated books for children. His activity in all of these areas has been recognized: his self-illustrated picture books have both received awards, and in 2007 one of his political cartoons was ranked among the top-ten editorial cartoons of the year by Time magazine.

Clement's first original children's book, Just Stay Put: A Chelm Story, is adapted from an original short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer. Set in Chelm, the town of fools in Jewish folklore, the story describes dreamer Mendel's wish to visit Warsaw, to the dismay of his wife, who wishes he would put in a good day's work. Mendel leaves for the city, and while taking a nap along the way, he puts his boots down facing in the direction he is heading. Another traveler, hoping to play a trick on the fool, turns Mendel's boots around, pointing the man back to Chelm, where he ends up disappointed that every place in the world looks the same. Writing that "Clement gives Chelm an offbeat charm," a Resource Links critic added that "scratchy outlines and engagingly unattractive peasants echo the story's humble shtetl setting." Ellen Mandel noted in Booklist that the author/illustrator's "pen-and-ink and gouache art combines humor with imagination in creating memorable images."

The Great Poochini, Clement's second self-illustrated title, introduces an ordinary dog named Jack who moonlights as an opera singer. Known as the Great Poochini, he is a star at the opera, but he always returns in the morning before his owner knows he has been gone. When his owner leaves all the windows closed on the night of a big performance, Jack is at a loss about how to get to the theater. Luckily, a cat burglar breaks into the house, and after scaring the thief away, Jack makes his way to the stage and wins over the audience as the star of the show. "Clement's very detailed, colourful illustrations in ink and watercolour compliment the text very well," wrote a reviewer for Resource Links.

Clement has also provided the illustrations for a number of children's picture books. Of his work on Don't Dig So Deep, Nicholas!, a Resource Links contributor wrote that the book's "illustrations are wonderfully humourous and energetic." Of his work on the retold fairytale One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!: A Very Grimm Fairy Tale, a contributor to Kirkus Reviews wrote that "Clement's quirky watercolors suit the fractured fairytale." A Publishers Weekly critic also noted that the illustrations enhanced the feel of the story, and called Clement's work "in-your-face." According to Ilene Cooper in Booklist, "the delightful line-and-watercolor artwork bubbles with sly, new details." Discussing his illustrations for Cary Fagan's Jewish folk-tale adaptation in Ten Old Men and a Mouse, a Kirkus Reviews contributor described the artist's "fine-lined, delicately colored, gently comical illustrations." According to a critic for Publishers Weekly, "Clement's editorial-style pen-and-inks with watercolor wash clearly spring from great affection."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 1996, Ellen Mandel, review of Just Stay Put: A Chelm Story, p. 245; October 1, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of Stories from the Bible, p. 345; January 1, 2007, review of One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!: A Very Grimm Fairy Tale, p. 110.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February, 2007, Hope Morrison, review of One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!, p. 265.

Children's Bookwatch, August, 2007, review of Ten Old Men and a Mouse.

Horn Book, January-February, 2007, Susan Dove Lempke, review of One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!, p. 76.

Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 2006, review of One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!, p. 1178; February 15, 2007, review of Ten Old Men and a Mouse.

Odyssey, October, 2007, Kathryn Hulick, review of It's All in Your Brain, p. 48.

Publishers Weekly, April 8, 1996, review of Just Stay Put, p. 68; November 13, 2006, review of One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!, p. 56; March 26, 2007, review of Ten Old Men and a Mouse, p. 92.

Resource Links, April, 1996, review of Just Stay Put, pp. 156-157; June, 1997, review of Don't Dig So Deep, Nicholas!, p. 207; December, 1999, review of The Great Poochini, p. 4; February, 2006, review of It's All In Your Brain, p. 35; April, 2007, Linda Ludke, review of Ten Old Men and a Mouse, p. 2.

School Library Journal, November, 2004, Patricia D. Lothrop, review of Stories from the Bible, p. 168; April, 2005, review of Stories from the Bible, p. S47; January, 2006, Ann Joslin, review of It's All in Your Brain, p. 150; January, 2007, review of One-eye! Two-eyes! Three-eyes!, p. 120; March, 2007, Heidi Estrin, review of Ten Old Men and a Mouse, p. 160.