Wallace Tripp

Wallace Whitney Tripp (June 26, 1940 – September 9, 2018) was an American illustrator, anthologist and author. He was known for creating anthropomorphic animal characters of emotional complexity and for his great visual and verbal humor. He was one of several illustrators of the Amelia Bedelia series of children's stories. He has illustrated over 40 books, including Marguerite, Go Wash Your Feet (1985), Wallace Tripp's Wurst Seller (1981), Casey at the Bat (1978) and A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His Horse to Me (1973). Tripp also drew many greeting cards for the Pawprints line.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, June 26, 1940, Tripp grew up in rural New Hampshire and New York City. He attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA) where he studied graphic arts. He received a bachelor's degree in education from Keene State College and studied English at the University of New Hampshire. He then taught English for three years until choosing to devote himself full-time to illustration. Perhaps best known for his children's books, Tripp also illustrated over 600 greeting cards for family-run company Pawprints Greeting Cards, Inc. Marcy Tripp, then-wife and Tripp's agent, ran Pawprints and created the publishing house, Sparhawk Books, that published two of his books, Wallace Tripp's Wurst Seller and an illustrated edition of Hilaire Belloc's The Bad Child's Book of Beasts. During the 1980s, Tripp worked on animation projects with Richard Purdum's British studio. A lover of word-play, classical music, Tolkien, Shakespeare, and a pilot, Tripp frequently included references to these in his illustrations. in 1969 Tripp send J.R.R. Tolkien some of his illustrations for The Hobbit, and the letter Tolkien wrote in return was one of Tripp's prized possessions. For many years, Tripp built and flew radio-controlled model planes and sculpted pilot figures in his style.

Tripp was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1986 and retired in 2000. He died in Francestown, New Hampshire, on September 9, 2018.