HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Tana Hoban (1917–2006)

Author of 26 Letters and 99 Cents

Includes the names: Tana Hoban, Tana Huban, Tanya Hoban, Tana Hoban; Illustrator-Tana Hoban

MembersReviewsPopularityRatingFavorited   Events   
7,423 (7,658)3193,271 (3.51)2
Tana Hoban was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has also lived in Holland and England. Hoban graduated from Moore College of Art in Philadelphia in 1938, and painted in Europe as a recipient of the John Frederick Lewis Fellowship. When she returned to Philadelphia, she worked as a free-lance advertising artist and magazine illustrator. By 1950 her work was included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and in 1953 she was the only woman mentioned in a Time magazine portfolio on "Half a Century of U.S. Photography." In 1959 she was named one of the Top Ten Women Photographers by the Professional Photographers of America. Hoban worked as an instructor in photography at the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Pennsylvania from 1966 to 1968. In 1967 she produced and filmed Catsup, an award-winning film which was shown at the Venice Film Festival. By 1955, she had written a book on photographing children, and in 1970 she combined her skills as a photographer with her interest in children to produce her first juvenile picture book, Shapes and Things. In 1973, Hoban served as project photographer for Beginning Concepts, a series of sound filmstrips produced by Scholastic Magazines, Inc. From 1974 to 1976 she taught photography at New York University. As of 1990, five of her books had been listed as ALA Notables. She has received awards for her entire body of work three separate times. In 1991, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from her alma mater, the Moore College of Art. Her works are included in the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, among other collections in both the United States and France. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from 26 Letters and 99 Cents… (more)
26 Letters and 99 Cents 812 copies, 31 reviews
I Read Signs 706 copies, 8 reviews
Shapes, Shapes, Shapes 524 copies, 23 reviews
Of Colors and Things 385 copies, 11 reviews
Black on White 325 copies, 13 reviews
Exactly the Opposite 322 copies, 16 reviews
White on Black 227 copies, 6 reviews
Look Look Look 225 copies, 3 reviews
Black & White 199 copies, 13 reviews
Over, Under and Through 190 copies, 4 reviews
Is It Larger? Is It Smaller? 173 copies, 8 reviews
Count and See 152 copies, 8 reviews
Construction Zone 150 copies, 4 reviews
More, Fewer, Less 134 copies, 19 reviews
So Many Circles, So Many Squares 117 copies, 13 reviews
A Children's Zoo 107 copies, 4 reviews
Look Book 105 copies, 8 reviews
Round&Round&Round 102 copies, 5 reviews
Shadows and Reflections 101 copies, 2 reviews
Colors Everywhere 94 copies, 12 reviews
I read symbols 94 copies, 3 reviews
What Is That? 87 copies, 1 review
Let's Count 85 copies, 11 reviews
CIRCLES, TRIANGLES AND SQUARES 85 copies, 7 reviews
LOOK AGAIN! 85 copies, 9 reviews
Who Are They? 84 copies, 2 reviews
Red, Blue, Yellow Shoe 78 copies, 4 reviews
Dig, Drill, Dump, Fill 62 copies, 2 reviews
Where Is It? 60 copies, 2 reviews
A, B, see! 58 copies, 8 reviews
Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? 44 copies, 8 reviews
1, 2, 3 Board Book 43 copies, 2 reviews
I Walk and Read 41 copies, 3 reviews
Look Up, Look Down 40 copies, 3 reviews
All About Where 40 copies, 4 reviews
Shapes and Things 35 copies, 2 reviews
Just Look 25 copies, 1 review
More Than One 23 copies, 1 review
Panda Panda 20 copies
Let's compare 7 copies
Look Closer! 6 copies
Look! 1 copy
The Big Book For Our Planet (Contributor) 130 copies
Who Says Quack? (Pudgy Board Book) (Photographer) 82 copies
The wonder of hands (Illustrator) 23 copies
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical name
Legal name
Other names
Date of birth
Date of death
Burial location
Gender
Nationality
Country (for map)
Birthplace
Place of death
Cause of death
Places of residence
Education
Occupations
Relationships
Agents
Organizations
Awards and honors
Short biography
Tana Hoban was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Russian immigrant family. Her brother Russell Hoban grew up to become a writer. Tana attended high school in Lansdale, and took art classes at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art on weekends. In 1938, she graduated from the School of Design for Women, now Moore College of Art and Design. She won a scholarship to travel and study painting in England and The Netherlands. She began taking photos for the window of her mother's shop. She worked briefly as a freelance graphic artist and illustrator before embarking on a career in photography. In 1946, Tana and her first husband Edward Gallob opened a studio in West Philadelphia. She took photos as illustrations for magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, and then became an advertising photographer.
She also published her photos in books; among the earliest was a do-it-yourself book called How to Photograph Your Child (1953). She contributed to the Greystone Encyclopedia of Photography in 1963. Her photographs of children, which became her specialty, eventually were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and at various shows mounted in Philadelphia, New York, Paris and Berlin. She progressed from photographs of children to photographs for children.
Beginning in 1970, she wrote, designed, illustrated and published more than 110 children's books, which won many awards, such as the Children’s Literature Citation from Drexel University and the Free Library of Philadelphia in 1983, and a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Media Photographers in 1998. Her pioneering works for children ranged from alphabet books like A, B, See! (1982), to primers like 26 Letters and 99 Cents (1986), to books that taught children about the world around them such as Circles, Colors and Squares (1974), Is It Larger? Is It Smaller? (1985), More Than One (1981), and I Read Symbols (1984).
Disambiguation notice

Member ratings

Average: (3.51)
0.5 1
1 11
1.5
2 35
2.5 2
3 102
3.5 20
4 105
4.5 8
5 53

Improve this author

Combine/separate works

Author division

Tana Hoban is currently considered a "single author." If one or more works are by a distinct, homonymous authors, go ahead and split the author.

Includes

Tana Hoban is composed of 5 names. You can examine and separate out names.

Combine with…

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 194,959,684 books! | Top bar: Always visible