Maurice Sendak

Credit: David Corio/Michael Ochs Archive/Getty

Maurice Sendak Dies at 83

Originally posted 05/08/2012 08:50AM

Maurice Sendak, the curmudgeonly and wildly successful children's book illustrator and author of Where the Wild Things Are, died at 3 a.m. Tuesday, a rep for the artist tells PEOPLE. He was 83.

He died at his Connecticut home from complications of a recent stroke, reports The New York Times. Sendak's friend (and onetime collaborator), playwright Tony Kushner, had been with him the past couple days, the rep tells PEOPLE.

Only last January, a frail but erudite Sendak made a memorable appearance on The Colbert Report, and said, "There's something in this country that is so opposed to understanding the complexity of children."

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