Nonny Hogrogian, 92, Honored Illustrator of Children’s Books, Dies

Nonny Hogrogian, an illustrator who mined her Armenian heritage to bring diversity and wonder to her woodcuts and watercolors — an approach that helped expand the world of children’s literature and made her a two-time Caldecott Medal winner, died on May 9 at a hospital in Holyoke, Mass. She was 92.

Her husband, the poet David Kherdian, said the cause was cancer.

Ms. Hogrogian was among a small number of illustrators to win multiple Caldecotts, considered one of the highest honors in children’s literature. She received her first medal in 1966 for the book “Always Room for One More,” written by Sorche Nic Leodhas, and her second in 1972 for “One Fine Day,” based on an Armenian folk tale that she retold and illustrated.

She also received a Caldecott Honor, an award for distinguished runners-up, for “The Contest” (1977), another Armenian folk tale that she retold and illustrated.

Ms. Hogrogian was a close friend of the renowned illustrators Maurice Sendak and Ezra Jack Keats, and like them she drew on the old-world European artistry and traditions of her immigrant family to broaden American children’s literature starting in the 1960s.

“Nonny helped kick open the door for today’s multicultural movement in children’s books,” Richard Michelson, a friend and fellow children’s author, wrote in an email. “She proudly explored her Armenian heritage in her many books — mining its folk tales and her own history — at a time when most books were more interested in creating a ‘melting pot’ than a ‘patchwork quilt.’”

Ms. Hogrogian did much of her work using woodcut prints, though she also used watercolors, charcoal and pen, depending on the project. She said she started by studying the text to see which medium it called for, rather then imposing a single approach to all her work.

Regardless of the medium, her books impressed readers with a deceptive simplicity, which on close inspection revealed a complex richness of color and tone. Her works stood on their own as art even as they brought to life the stories being told.

In her acceptance speech after receiving her first Caldecott, Ms. Hogrogian described her thought process in deciding how to illustrate “Always Room for One More,” based on a Scottish folk song about a poor man who keeps welcoming guests into his home.

“Woodcuts, long my favorite medium, were too strong for the gentle folk in the heather,” she said. “So I pulled out my watercolors and chalks, some ink and a pen, and before long, in an almost effortless way, the drawings seemed to flow.”

May Hogrogian was born on May 7, 1932, in the Bronx. An uncle gave her the nickname Nonny when she was a child, and it stuck.

Her parents, Mugerdich and Rakel (Ansoorian) Hogrogian, were immigrants who had fled the Armenian genocide, a tragedy that haunted much of her work (and that of her husband, Mr. Kherdian, whose parents also fled the country).

Her father was a photoengraver, while her mother took in piecework. Both painted in their spare time, which inspired Ms. Hogrogian at a young age. She later described herself as an intensely shy child who used her prodigious art skills to draw Walt Disney characters to impress her classmates and teachers.

Ms. Hogrogian studied fine arts at Hunter College in Manhattan, and after graduating in 1953 she found a job designing book covers for a New York publisher, Thomas Y. Crowell.

Though she was allowed to do artwork for some of the books, she wanted to be a full-time artist. She studied woodcuts at the New School and eventually left for a freelance career.

Work as a freelance designer was hard, and she returned to working for publishers from time to time, and even considered changing careers to become an occupational therapist. Her first Caldecott erased any worries that she had by giving her a steady supply of high-profile work.

Ms. Hogrogian met Mr. Kherdian when she was hired to design the cover of his 1971 book, “Homage to Adana.” They married that year. He is her only immediate survivor.

She illustrated several more of her husband’s books, even as she continued her own career.

The couple lived a peripatetic life, first in Lyme Center, N.H., and then in upstate New York. They also spent seven years in rural Oregon, on a farm with other followers of George Gurdjieff, an Armenian philosopher and mystic.

They moved to Armenia after the 2016 presidential election, but a back injury she sustained caused them to return to the United States, first to Black Mountain, N.C., and later to western Massachusetts.

Ms. Hogrogian said repeatedly that her next book would be her last, and she often referred to herself as retired, even as she continued to work.

“I have probably been busier in retirement than out of it,” she wrote in an autobiographical sketch in 2001. But the word “retirement,” she added, “indicates more a time in my life when I need to live as I really wish to live, and work is a large part of what I take joy in doing.”