Fax, Elton C.

Illustrator and author; b. 1909.

From the description of Elton Fax collection, 1952-1967. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 70969006

Elton Clay Fax was born October 9, 1909, in Baltimore, MD. His mother was a country school teacher who believed in the power of learning, and she instilled in Elton and his brother the need to read. The only institution of public service that was not segregated when he was growing up in Baltimore was the Enoch Pratt Free Library, where he borrowed the many books his mother felt he should learn to read. He became particularly enamoured of a series of travel books known as 'Our Little Cousins.' Later in life he visited many of the far-off places he had read about. Through his drawings and writing, he shared with others what he saw, heard, and felt in his travels. When he illustrated Tales from the Story Hat, he had been to Ghana in West Africa and had seen the kinds of straw hats worn by the African story tellers. Biographical Source: Something About the Author, Vol. 25, p. 106-107

From the guide to the Elton C. Fax Papers, 1960, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])

Book illustrator, writer.

From the description of Oral history interview with Elton C. Fax, 1976. (Columbia University In the City of New York). WorldCat record id: 309730999

Artist, author.

Elton Clay Fax was born in 1909.

From the description of Elton C. Fax papers, 1930-1974. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122346205

Elton Fax was born in Baltimore on October 9, 1909. He began his career as an artist after graduating from the Syracuse University College of Fine Arts in 1931, and later became a writer as well. During his long career, Fax has taught at colleges and universities, lectured at schools and libraries throughout the world, and become well-known for his chalk-talks, lectures which he illustrates with drawings. From 1949 through 1956, he was a chalktalk artist for the New York Times Children's Book Program. A world traveller, Fax lived in Mexico in the 1950's, travelled to South America and the Caribbean as a chalk-talk artist for the U.S. Department of State Educational Exchange Program, and visited both Africa and the Soviet Union several times, including a visit to the Soviet Union as a guest of the Soviet Writers' Union in 1971.

As an artist, Fax has been responsible for the illustrations of over thirty books, and has also illustrated numerous magazine articles. Museums in New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D. C., have exhibited his work. His stature in the field is indicated by his inclusion in Who's Who in American Art, The Negro In Art, and The American Negro in Art.

Fax has also written widely, contributing several essays and articles to various publications. Most of these, as well as his books, have focused on his travels and on black history and culture. His first book, published in 1960, was West African Vignettes, sketches and commentary based upon his travels in that Part of the world. Contemporary Black Leaders (1970) was a series of fourteen illustrated profiles of prominent blacks. In 1972 Fax received the Coretta Scott King Award for Seventeen Black Artists (1971), which was also a collection of profiles. Fax went on to publish Garvey--Pioneer Black Nationalist, a biography, in 1972; Through Black Eyes: Journeys of a Black Artist to East Africa and Russia, in 1974; and Black Artists of the New Generation, in 1977. Another book, Hoshar, based upon Fax's 1978 trip to the Central Asian Republics of the U.S.S.R., will be published in Moscow in 1980.

Fax is married, and has one son and one daughter.

From the guide to the Elton C. Fax papers, 1930-1974, (The New York Public Library. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division.)

Elton C. Fax (1909-1993) was an award-winning cartoonist, illustrator, and writer and one of America's most celebrated African-American artists. During his 60-year career he lectured, travelled, and taught in addition to illustrating more than 30 books, writing nine of his own, and producing a weekly cartoon based on black history that appeared in several black newspapers during the 1940s.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he attended Claflin College in Orangeburg, South Carolina, and Syracuse University's College of Fine Arts, graduating from SU in 1931 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. Fax taught art at Claflin College briefly, then worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as an artist and teacher at the Harlem Art Center in New York City from 1936 to 1940. He later taught at City College in New York and held residencies at Purdue University, Princeton University, Fisk University, Western Michigan University, University of Hartford, and Texas Southern University.

An avid traveller, his interest in Central and South America led him to move his family to Mexico for three years (1953-1956), and to visit Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay and other countries. His travels to Africa inspired him to create a number of sketches which were eventually published in his first book, West African Vignettes and resulted in a position as State Department lecturer in East Africa in 1963, while his trips around Asia and the Soviet Union led him to participate in meetings of the Soviet Writers' Union in 1971 and 1973 and the Bulgarian Writers Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1977. Also in the 1970s Fax began writing and publishing books on black history in the United States, most notably a biography of the African American nationalist Marcus Garvey.

Fax became known as a speaker for his unique "chalk-talks," during which he would illustrate his stories with spontaneous sketches (he was particularly popular with children). He gave many of these chalk-talks during his travels, often speaking on the civil rights struggle going on in the United States. Throughout his career Fax's sympathy for the plight of third-world peoples and of the poor in every country inspired his work, whether teaching, lecturing or drawing.

His work has been exhibited at many well-known institutions including the National Gallery of Art and Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota; and National Museum, Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He received the Women's Civic League Contest gold medal, 1932; MacDowell Colony fellow, 1968; Coretta Scott King Award, American Library Association, for his book Seventeen Black Artists, 1972; Louis E. Seley NACAL gold medal for painting, 1972; Rockefeller Foundation fellow, 1976; Syracuse University, Chancellor's Medal, 1990.

From the guide to the Elton Fax Collection, 1969, undated, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)