Library Lions 2009

Hilary Knight

Hilary Knight was born on November 1, 1926, in Roslyn, New York, to parents who were artists and writers in an era that reveled in the arts.

In 1932, the Knight family moved to Manhattan, where the young Mr. Knight wandered happily through a magic garden of urban delights. His taste and highly original aesthetic sensibility bloomed as he explored New York’s treasures, from the now-vanished Battery Park Aquarium and Joseph Urban’s Ziegfeld Theatre to the still-standing Plaza Hotel, Art Students League, and The New York Public Library.

In visits to the Plaza with his parents, the six-year-old budding artist did research that would reward him later in life.

As a young man, Mr. Knight studied at the Art Students League with Reginald Marsh, who taught him how to make his drawings come alive…and move.

In 2009, the adult Mr. Knight has found in The New York Public Library a home for his work and a second home for the Plaza Hotel’s most illustrious resident, Eloise, who incredibly (still being six) celebrates her 55th year in 2010.

“Long before Google and Wikipedia were simply a fingertip away, everyone I knew (artists, students, and the simply curious) could find an image of virtually everything at The New York Public Library’s Picture Collection. For me, it was— and still is—an invaluable source of visual information.”