Natick-based artist and children’s book illustrator Rob Dunlavey is one of four artists chosen this year to be 2025 Sendak Fellows. 

The award includes a $5000 cash stipend and a month-long residency at famed children’s book illustrator Maurice Sendak’s home and archive in Ridgefield, CT.

Sendak is best known for his seminal and widely loved classic picture book Where The Wild Things Are.

Sendak’s hope was that the residency time will aid fellows in creating new works that are “not vapid, stupid, or sexy, but original. Work that excites and incites”

Rob Dunlavey is the illustrator of In the Woods by David Elliott, Owl Sees Owl by Laura Godwin, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, Whale Fall by Melissa Stewart, a Bank Street Best Book of the Year, and more. His editorial illustrations have been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Business Week, and The Los Angeles Times.

Sendak Foundation announcement: https://www.sendakfoundation.org/2025-sendak-fellows

Publishers Weekly: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/97248-2025-se...

Rob Dunlavey website: https://www.robd.com/

During his time at the Sendak Foundation studios, Rob plans to focus on a dozen personal picture book ideas in various stages of completion or reassessment, an illustrated book of Italian poetry due out next Spring, and his daily landscape sketching practice.