Maurice Sendak died in Danbury, CT this morning from complications of a stroke.

According to the New York Times, Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83 and lived in Ridgefield, Conn.

Maurice Sendak received many awards for his work, including:

 

• Caldecott Medal for Where the Wild Things Are, 1964
• Hans Christian Andersen Award for children's book illustration, 1970
• National Book Award in category Picture Books for Outside Over There, 1982
• Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal, 1983
• National Medal of Arts, 1996.
• Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, 2003 (shared with Christine Nöstlinger)

 

According the the New York Times, the death was caused by complications from a recent stroke.

Sendak was a long time Ridgefield resident, but was originally born in Brooklyn, NY.to Polish Jewish immigrant parents Sarah (née Schindler) and Philip Sendak, a dressmaker.

According to Wikipedia, Sendak has described his childhood as a "terrible situation" because of his extended family dying in The Holocaust, which exposed him at an early age to death and the concept of mortality. His love of books started at an early age when he developed health problems and was confined to his bed.He decided to become an illustrator after viewing Walt Disney's film Fantasia at the age of twelve. One of his first professional commissions was to create window displays for the toy store F.A.O. Schwarz. His illustrations were first published in 1947 in a textbook titled Atomics for the Millions by Dr. Maxwell Leigh Eidinoff. He spent much of the 1950s illustrating children's books written by others before beginning to write his own stories

Click HERE for entire article in the New York TImes.