Building a Visual World: Roger Duvoisin’s Day and Night

The first book that introduced me to Roger Duvoisin was Day and Night. I found it sitting on a shelf at an estate sale, and I was immediately drawn to the front and back cover designs. I loved the owl and the poodle, the bold shapes, and the way the two characters seemed to belong to completely different worlds.

What fascinated me was how carefully the whole story was built around contrast. Day, the poodle, and Night, the owl, live opposite lives. One is awake while the other sleeps. Their environments and rhythms feel different from one another, and so do the visual worlds they live in. The story idea is very simple, but Duvoisin carries it through the whole book.

At the same time, the illustrations feel loose and free. There is an ease to the drawing that almost hides how much structure is underneath it.

I became a huge fan of Duvoisin after that. Since then, I have been collecting his books left and right and have become a very proud collector. A few years ago, I also had the privilege of visiting the Kerlan Collection at the University of Minnesota to research his original work. Seeing some of the artwork and process materials in person made me look at his books even more closely, and I have been writing and thinking about his work ever since.