George Efrain Ancona

Mexican-American Children’s Book Author

Ancona, George Efrain, 91, died at home in Santa Fe on January 1, 2021.

George Ancona is renowned for creating vivid photo essays that invite children to immerse themselves in new places and cultures, to appreciate the work of everyday life and to accept themselves as well as others. His intimate portraits and straightforward writings celebrate his own Mexican heritage and depression-era upbringing in Brooklyn, N.Y. Trained as an artist and graphic designer, he entered the children’s book field initially as a photographer, and over the past fifty years has authored, photographed and designed over one hundred books that are beloved by children and librarians throughout the Americas.

His early works as a photographer included collaborations with Barbara Brenner on Faces,1970, and Bodies, 1973 as well as the Handtalk series with Remy Charlip and Mary Beth Miller. Monsters on Wheels, 1974 was his first book as an author. In later years his books on Latino culture and characters included The Pinata Maker, 1994, Ricardo’s Day, 1995, Fiesta, 1995, Mayeros: A Yucatec Maya Family, 1997, and Barrio: Jose’s Neighborhood, 1998. Cuban Kids, 2000 was included in ALA’s banned and challenged books. Learn more about his books at: www.georgeancona.com 

Ancona traveled extensively researching his topics and connecting with people, saying:

“Discovering children's books just opened up a lot of opportunities to get to know people, to be accepted by them, to live with them. And more than the book, I feel that it has enriched my life. I have friends, and I'm still in touch with children that I photographed very early in their lives. I recently went back to a wedding of the little boy from Pablo Remembers.”

Ancona was born in 1929 at the start of the Great Depression in Brooklyn, NY. His parents had come separately a few years earlier from Merida, Yucatan. They married and after first living over an Italian bakery in Williamsburg, settled in Coney Island amidst other recent immigrants from Italy, Ireland and Russia. George attended P.S. 80 Elementary School and spent his free time playing and later working at Coney Island’s notorious Steeplechase Amusement Park.  

At Abraham Lincoln High School, he had the privilege of being part of the elite Art Squad, led by famed art teacher Leon Friend. Stephen Heller wrote in the Design Observer, “Friend's curriculum balanced the fine and applied arts and offered more commercial art courses than most major art schools. He introduced leading contemporary designers and inspired many of his students to become designers, art directors, illustrators, typographers and photographers.”

While in high school Ancona was provided the opportunity to present his portfolio to the Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo. Upon graduation George traveled to Mexico City by bus and Tamayo arranged for him to study tuition-free at the Academia de San Carlos, where he took courses in drawing, sculpture, and fresco mural painting for five months.

Returning to New York, George took night courses at Art Students League and The Cooper Union, while starting his career in design by day at the New York Times. At age 21, he married Pat Apatow of Flatbush. Confident in his skills, he stopped his studies and moved to Esquire, working alongside classmates Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast and Art Kane. With a growing family, he soon moved on to Madison Avenue and worked as an art director at Grey Advertising and later Daniel & Charles Advertising. 

Over the years he had hired and learned from many photographers, and he came to realize that they were having more fun than he was. In 1961 he stepped away from his agency job to take on work as a freelance photographer and cinematographer. At his loft studio on 3rd Avenue and 33rd Street, just below the dance studio of Merce Cunningham, he took on assignments for a wide range of clients, including Children’s Vogue, Charles Jourdan and Marlboro. As a cameraman, Ancona shot documentaries around the world, and did several early segments for Sesame Street, Big Blue Marble and other children’s programs.

From 1962 to 1970 Ancona moved his family to the Gate Hill Cooperative in Stony Point, NY , where they lived alongside multidisciplinary artists including John Cage, David Tudor, M.C. Richards and Stan Vanderbeek. Divorced in 1966, he married Brazilian journalist Helga Von Sydow in 1968. They left New York in 1989 for Santa Fe, N.M. where they immersed themselves in the city’s culture and Spanish roots. He expanded his photography practice and was an active member of the arts community garnering recognition from the New Mexico Book Association and received the City of Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2014.

He is survived by his wife Helga and children, Lisa, Gina, Tomas (first marriage) and Isabel, Marina, and Pablo (second marriage) as well as grandchildren Corina, Olivia, Natalie, Felix, and great-grandchildren Maya, Alexander, and Laila.

Of his process, Ancona wrote,

“In my way, I try to do what my father did when he would take me by the hand and walk the docks of Brooklyn looking up at the huge black hulls of freighters that came from all over the world. It made me aware that there are places far away that someday I would go to and get to know the people there. It opened up the world to me. I try to do this with my books.”