Award-winning illustration for children's publishing, and the editorial and advertising industries.
Unique and creative designs for manufactured products and the social expression industry.
Creative content and character development for television and film, specializing in the kids’ space.
Gerald Kelley

Agent: Lori Nowicki

 

Gerald Kelley received his BFA in studio drawing and began working after-hours as an editorial illustrator while maintaining a 9-5 job in graphic design. He now works full-time as a children’s illustrator. He has illustrated Grover Cleveland, Again! by documentarian Ken Burns, and M is for Monster, by Children’s Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis. His work combines watercolor and digital. Gerald lives in Colorado with his husband and geriatric border collie.

Clients

  • Penguin Random House
  • Simon & Schuster
  • Faber & Faber
  • Scholastic
  • Oxford University Press
  • Macmillan
  • Pearson
  • Hachette
  • Sleeping Bear Press
  • Miles Kelly Publishing
  • Barrington Stoke
  • Six Red Marbles
  • Carlton Publishing
  • Templar Publishing

 

Awards / Honors

  • Frances and Wesley Bock Book Award For Children’s Literature 2017 – Please Please the Bees
  • CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2017 – Grover Cleveland, Again!

Reviews

Please Please the Bees

“[Please Please the Bees is] funny and thought-provoking, and Kelley’s expressive paintings are sunny and warm.”

Kirkus
Please Please the Bees

“In his authorial debut, illustrator Kelley shows a knack for a wry turn of phrase, an effective economy with character development, and a good sense of textual pacing.”

Kirkus
Grover Cleveland, Again!

“Grover Cleveland, Again!…offers Burns's trademarked accessible, conversational style of history…with Kelley's sweeping art setting a scene for each president and sidebars offering biographical facts along with a couple of telling or simply amusing anecdotes…the effect of the whole is stirring enough to stoke and satisfy curiosity. ”

New York Times Book Review

Portfolio

CHILDREN

Authored Books

Please Please the Bees (Albert Whitman & Company)

Illustrated Books

A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo (Chronicle Books)
Grover Cleveland, Again! (Random House)
A Christmas Carol (Random House)
The Legend of the Jersey Devil (Sleeping Bear Press)
M is for Monster (Sleeping Bear Press)
The Nine Lives of Jacob Tibbs (Random House)
My Name is Bob (Barron's)