Alan Tiegreen

About Alan Tiegreen

Alan Tiegreen (born 1935) is an American illustrator and art teacher best known for drawing the pictures in several of Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby books in the 1970s and 1980s.

Born in Boise, Idaho, Tiegreen took a BA at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1957 and then trained at the Art Center school of design in Los Angeles, graduating in 1961. He began teaching at Georgia State University in Atlanta in 1965, and his paintings are held in public and private collections including the Smithsonian Institution.

He took over the Ramona books from Louis Darling, who had died, starting with Ramona the Brave (1975). He went on to illustrate Ramona and Her Father (1977), which was named a Newbery Honor book in 1978, and Ramona Quimby, Age 8 (1981), a Newbery Honor book in 1982. All three were first published in the United States by William Morrow. Later editions of these books were reillustrated, first by Tracy Dockray and then by Jacqueline Rogers.

For collectors

Tiegreen's drawings appear in the first editions of Ramona the Brave, Ramona and Her Father and Ramona Quimby, Age 8; later printings may carry Dockray's or Rogers's art instead, so check the illustrator credit on the title page.