CLAUDIA FONTAINE CHIDESTER was born in Frankfurt, Germany, in the height of the Cold War. She attended U.S. military-funded schools until her family moved to Guadalajara, Mexico, during her high school years. Chidester earned her degree in art history from Wellesley College and pursued her passion for art research while working at the Smith College library. Later, she earned a master’s degree in library and information science from the University of Texas at Austin, worked in venture capital, and taught business research for fifteen years. Additionally, she was the vice president then president of the Austin Bat Cave, a writing and tutoring center for children ages six to eighteen, for nearly ten years. Chidester founded the Fontaine Archive, which has collected and organized her parents’ rich store of materials; it is designed to make available the letters, photographs, and diaries of Virginia Fontaine and the art of Paul Fontaine. The archive’s first publication, Work Standing Up: The Life and Art of Paul Fontaine (2013), won the 2014 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for design. For more information, please see www.fontaine.org.

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