Edgar and Ingri D'Aulaire met in Munich, where both were studying art, in the 1920s. Shortly after their marriage they moved to the United States and began to create the picture books that have established their reputation for unique craftsmanship. Their books were known for their vivid lasting color because of the pain-staking process of stone lithography which they used for all their American history biographies. This was an old-world craft of which they were both expert and involved actually tracing their images on large slabs of Bavarian limestone. Throughout their long careers, Ingri and Edgar worked as a team on both art and text. Their research took them to the actual places with which their biographies had to do, including the countries of Italy, Portugal and Spain, when they were researching for Columbus, the hills of Virginia while they researched for Washington, and the wilds of Kentucky and Illinois for Abraham Lincoln. The fact that they spoke 5 languages fluently served them well in their European travels and while they researched original documents. Since their deaths in the 1980's, their books and work have been kept alive by their two sons, Ola and Nils.
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