The Color Kittens

Martin Provensen was born in Chicago, Illinois on July 10, 1916. He took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the University of California at Los Angeles. During World War II, he created animated training films for the Navy at the Walt Disney Studios. He met Alice Rose Twitchell, who was working at the animation studio of Walter Lantz. They married in 1944 and became known as an author-illustrator picture book team.

They created many award-winning picture books including A Visit to William Blake's Inn: Poems for Innocent and Inexperienced Travelers by Nancy Willard, which won a 1982 Caldecott Honor, and The Glorious Flight: Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot, which won the 1984 Caldecott Medal. Their other books included A Year at Maple Hill Farm, Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm, Karen's Curiosity, Karen's Opposites, The Fuzzy Duckling, Katie the Kitten, The Color Kittens by Margaret Wise Brown, and A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. They also created Tony the Tiger, which was the advertising symbol of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. He died of a heart attack on March 27, 1987 at the age of 70.

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