Olga Lecaye (1916–2004)

Olga Lecaye was the pen name of Olga Solotareff, later Olga El Kayem, born to Russian émigré parents in Choisy-le-Roi, France. She spent her childhood in the country near Soissons, and took classes at the Louvre. She married a Lebanese-born doctor, with whom she had three children, and lived for several years in the Middle East. In 1946, she created the illustrations for a book by artist Michel Seuphor entitled La Maison claire, ou les Trois Faces de la vie attentive (The Clear House, or the Three Faces of the Attentive Life). She went on to work as an illustrator for various French-language newspapers and founded a children's magazine. In 1960, she returned to France, and devoted herself to drawing, painting and gardening. In 1986, she published La Famille Ours et la petite musique de nuit (The Bear Family and the Little Night Music), which she both wrote and illustrated. During her long career, she was the author and illustrator of a dozen books of children's literature, and the illustrator of a dozen more children's books, many of which were written by her own children, daughter Nadja and sons Grégoire Solotareff and Alexis Lecaye.