You know, I'm always debating with myself over how much info is enough for a good post. Is it really useful for anyone to dig up the publishing history of the pre-war French Augustinian version of Highlights magazine? Isn't it enough to just say, "Ooh, pretty pictures! Robert Lambry! flickr!" and move on? Even when I realize there's no basic information on an interesting-looking guy, I'm tempted to say probably not and probably yeah.
But then, if I'd stopped at a dozen different Google search variations, I might never have found Albert Verbrugghe.
Verbrugghe was a school administrator in France. He loved cycling, played pétanque in the summer, threw snowballs with his grandkids in the winter, always wore a hat, and passed away before his granddaughter Cath realized she should be asking him all sorts of questions about his life.
Questions such as, "When you were in the German POW camp at Oxflag X-B all those years, and you made picture books entirely by hand--from the text and drawings to the bindings--for your young daughters, who were far away and worried about you, were you recreating them entirely from memory? Or did you have copies of Lambry's les Animaux tels qu'ils sont and Hans Christian Andersen's illustrated le Vilain Petit Canard that you could reference?"
Actually, maybe not that important of a question.
Cath's story of her grandfather and his books: Albert mon grand-père [cath grains de sel, google translate link's not working]
Check out the galleries on Cath's blog:
Les animaux tels qu'ils sont, D'après R et L Lambry. [cath grains de sel]
Le vilain petit canard, Conte d'Andersen
