Caps for Sale and the Mindful Monkeys

About Ann Marie Mulhearn SayerEsphyr Slobodkina

Esphyr Slobodkina (1908-2002) internationally renowned artist and author of the children's classic Caps for Sale was among the first female American artists to explore abstraction and the first to use collage in American storybooks. She studied art in Russia and China before immigrating to the United States in 1928. She was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group and her work is represented in prominent museum collections across the country. Ann Marie Mulhearn Sayer met Esphyr Slobodkina in 1996 when she was hired to write musical narratives for Caps for Sale and other Slobodkina books. Slobodkina and Sayer became close friends and Sayer has administrated and exhibited Slobodkina's works for over eighteen years. Using Slobodkina's original art and reflecting upon hours of conversations with her on perspective and her choices in stylization Sayer employed great care to develop each layout as the artist herself might have done. More Caps for Sale is based on story ideas from Slobodkina and Sayer's imagination with prior permission from Slobodkina. Through this posthumous story Sayer awakens Slobodkina's voice.