Lili Cassel Wronker

[from the Biographical Sketch at Children's Literature Research Collection at University of Minnesota]

Lili Cassel-Wronker was born May 5, 1924 in Berlin, Germany. She and her family fled the Nazis in 1938, and came to the United States in 1940. She attended the Art Students League in New York City and the Brooklyn Museum Art School. Early in her career, Lili Cassel-Wronker worked for Time, Incorporated's art department, as a book jacket designer for World Publishing, and taught calligraphy. She illustrated her first children's book, The Rainbow Mother Goose, in 1947. Throughout her long and prolific career, she has illustrated many works of fiction and non-fiction, several drawing on her interest in Jewish history and life. Lili Cassel-Wronker works primarily in black and white using pen and/or ink. She characterizes her work as "linear and realistic". Some of her works such as Bring a Torch Jeanette, Isabella, also demonstrate her proficiency as a calligrapher. Lili Cassel-Wronker had also worked with her husband, Erich Wronker, publishing books on their own hand press.

A more extensive history of the family is available at The Center for Jewish Studies.