biography

Virginia Lee Burton (August 30, 1909 – October 15, 1968), also known by her married name, Virginia Demetrios, was an American illustrator and children's book author. She wrote and illustrated seven children's books, including Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (1939), and The Little House (1943), which won the Caldecott Medal. She also illustrated six books by other authors. Burton founded the textile collective, Folly Cove Designers, in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, which had numerous museum exhibitions. Some of its members' works are held today in the collections of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the Cape Ann Museum, and New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art.