Tasha Tudor

• Name — Tasha Tudor • Birth Name — Starling Burgess • Born — 28 August 1915 • Birthplace — Boston, Massachusetts • Died — 18 June 2008 • Place of death — Marlboro, Vermont • Occupation — Illustrator, writer • Period — 20th century • Genre — Children's books, regional painting • Subject — New England nostalgia • Website — tashatudorandfamily.com

Tasha Tudor was born in Boston, Massachusetts, as Starling Burgess, the daughter of naval architect W. Starling Burgess and noted portrait painter Rosamund Tudor. At birth, she was named "Starling" after her father, but he was an admirer of the War and Peace character Natasha, and his daughter was soon re-christened Natasha, which was later shortened to Tasha. She spent her early years in Marblehead, Massachusetts, before her father's work relocated the family to North Chevy Chase in Maryland to help with the wartime effort. Tasha’s parents divorced when she was nine, following her mother's rejection of the strict society in Boston in favor of a more Bohemian existence as a painter in Greenwich Village. As a result, Tasha went to live with friends of the family in Redding, Connecticut. Life in this household was far more creative and less structured. Tasha and the other children were largely left to their own devices. Tasha later referred to this unconventional atmosphere as "the best thing that ever happened to me". The children spent much of their time performing scenes from Shakespeare and in plays written by "Aunt Gwen", the household matriarch. Tasha had developed a strong desire to live an agrarian lifestyle in the New England countryside, and she worked to advance her dream even while still young. In her teen years she earned and saved enough pocket money to purchase a cow she named Delilah. When socializing with her mother's friends, Tudor was usually introduced as "Rosamund Tudor's daughter, Tasha", leading others to believe that her last name was Tudor. Liking the sound of it, she adopted the name and eventually changed her surname legally following her second divorce. She married Thomas McCready in 1938 in Redding, Connecticut. Tasha and Thomas McCready purchased a large old farm in Webster, New Hampshire, where four children, Bethany, Seth, Thomas, and Efner, were raised. Her first story, Pumpkin Moonshine, was published in 1938, as a gift for a young niece of her husband. They were divorced in 1961, and her children legally changed their names from McCready to Tudor. A later marriage to Allan John Woods lasted only a brief time. Tasha Tudor illustrated nearly one hundred books, the last being Corgiville Christmas, released in 2003. Several were collaborative works with a New Hampshire friend Mary Mason Campbell. She also collaborated in 1957 with Nell Dorr to produce the 24-minute 16mm film The Golden Key: Enter the Fantasy World of Tasha Tudor. Tudor lived in Marlboro, Vermont, in a house copied from that of other New Hampshire friends Donn and Doris Purvis. Her sons Seth and Tom built the replication and son Seth lived next door with his family. It is documented in Drawn from New England, and in The Private World of Tasha Tudor. Mother and son as well as daughter Efner, who published a couple of books together with Tasha Tudor, worked closely on family endeavors.

Tudor toured the country for many years, giving speeches at libraries, colleges and museums. Her last major appearances were at the 1996/97 retrospective exhibition at Colonial Williamsburg. Many of her personal artifacts and doll house objects were shown there as well as the manuscripts and watercolors for Corgiville Fair and A Time to Keep. The original art for these two books belongs to Colonel Thomas Strong Tudor and was loaned through the auspices of the Pierpont Morgan Library. An exhibition celebrating Tudor's holiday artwork and celebrations, "Tasha Tudor's Spirit of the Holidays", was gathered from private collections. The combined large and impressive exhibition was displayed in 2005/06 at the Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, in 2006/07. It was shown at the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City from November 2007 through March 2008; in Lake Charles, La. during the winter of 2008/09; and at the Museum, Cooperstown, N.Y., Oct. - Dec. 2012. That exhibit included two early oil paintings that Rosamund Tudor created of her daughter c. 1920 and 1930. Many other original paintings and her first miniature illustrated manuscript Hitty's Almanac were included in the 2006 exhibition at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. The largest extant collection of Tudor books and other materials is in the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. It includes original correspondence and some original art work.

Tasha Tudor died on June 18, 2008, in Marlboro, Vermont. Her estate, valued at over $2 million, was contested by the three children she disinherited. According to the Daily Telegraph: "Her will, written in 2001, left the bulk of the estate to Seth Tudor, 67, and his son Winslow. It left only $1,000 each to Bethany Tudor, 69, and Efner Tudor Holmes, and a piece of antique furniture to younger son Thomas Tudor, 64, because of their 'estrangement' from her". The dispute was settled out of court in 2010.