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Garth Williams
Garth Montgomery Williams (April 16, 1912 – May 8, 1996) was an American artist who came to prominence in the American postwar era as an illustrator of children's books. Many of the books he illustrated have become classics of American children's literature.
In Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and in the Little House series of books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Williams['s] drawings have become inseparable from how we think of those stories. In that respect ... Williams['s] work belongs in the same class as Sir John Tenniel's drawings for Alice in Wonderland, or Ernest Shepard's illustrations for Winnie the Pooh.
His friendly, fuzzy baby animals populated a dozen Little Golden Books.
Mel Gussow in The New York Times wrote, "He believed that books 'given, or read, to children can have a profound influence!' For that reason, he said, he used his illustrations to try to 'awaken something of importance ... humor, responsibility, respect for others, interest in the world at large!'"
Born in New York City in 1912, he was the son of Hamilton Williams and Florence Stuart Davis. Williams's father was a cartoonist for Punch and his mother was a landscape painter. He described them by saying, "Everybody in my home was always either painting or drawing." He grew up on farms in New Jersey and Canada until the family relocated to the United Kingdom in 1922, where his parents were from.
Williams studied architecture there, and worked for a time as an architect's assistant. When the Great Depression came, he made up his mind to be an artist instead of an architect. He began his studies at Westminster School of Art in 1929 and, in 1931, was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he created a sculpture that was awarded the British Prix de Rome. He continued his education at the British School at Rome in Germany and Italy, until the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
In London, he volunteered with the British Red Cross Civilian Defense ambulances, and helped collect the dead and injured from the streets. After a bomb blast vaporized a friend who had been walking next to him, he sent his wife and daughter to Canada, and reunited with them in New York in 1942.
In the United States, Williams worked making lenses at a war plant, applied for work as a camouflage artist, contributed war-effort posters to the British-American Art Center in New York, and brought his portfolio around to the major publishing houses. He drew for The New Yorker for a mutually unfulfilling period of time. Then, in 1945, he received his first commission as an illustrator, from editor Ursula Nordstrom of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls. The story is that Nordstrom "told him she was expecting a manuscript that he might illustrate. By coincidence, when the manuscript arrived the author had pinned a note to it: 'Try Garth Williams'. The author was E. B. White; the book was Stuart Little." The Whites had wanted Robert Lawson to work on the project, but had burned through eight illustrators. The book became a success with adults as well as children. Williams later said that seeing grownups on buses and trains reading Stuart Little persuaded him to continue as a freelance illustrator.
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Garth Williams
Garth Montgomery Williams (April 16, 1912 – May 8, 1996) was an American artist who came to prominence in the American postwar era as an illustrator of children's books. Many of the books he illustrated have become classics of American children's literature.
In Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web, and in the Little House series of books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Williams['s] drawings have become inseparable from how we think of those stories. In that respect ... Williams['s] work belongs in the same class as Sir John Tenniel's drawings for Alice in Wonderland, or Ernest Shepard's illustrations for Winnie the Pooh.
His friendly, fuzzy baby animals populated a dozen Little Golden Books.
Mel Gussow in The New York Times wrote, "He believed that books 'given, or read, to children can have a profound influence!' For that reason, he said, he used his illustrations to try to 'awaken something of importance ... humor, responsibility, respect for others, interest in the world at large!'"
Born in New York City in 1912, he was the son of Hamilton Williams and Florence Stuart Davis. Williams's father was a cartoonist for Punch and his mother was a landscape painter. He described them by saying, "Everybody in my home was always either painting or drawing." He grew up on farms in New Jersey and Canada until the family relocated to the United Kingdom in 1922, where his parents were from.
Williams studied architecture there, and worked for a time as an architect's assistant. When the Great Depression came, he made up his mind to be an artist instead of an architect. He began his studies at Westminster School of Art in 1929 and, in 1931, was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he created a sculpture that was awarded the British Prix de Rome. He continued his education at the British School at Rome in Germany and Italy, until the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
In London, he volunteered with the British Red Cross Civilian Defense ambulances, and helped collect the dead and injured from the streets. After a bomb blast vaporized a friend who had been walking next to him, he sent his wife and daughter to Canada, and reunited with them in New York in 1942.
In the United States, Williams worked making lenses at a war plant, applied for work as a camouflage artist, contributed war-effort posters to the British-American Art Center in New York, and brought his portfolio around to the major publishing houses. He drew for The New Yorker for a mutually unfulfilling period of time. Then, in 1945, he received his first commission as an illustrator, from editor Ursula Nordstrom of Harper's Department of Books for Boys and Girls. The story is that Nordstrom "told him she was expecting a manuscript that he might illustrate. By coincidence, when the manuscript arrived the author had pinned a note to it: 'Try Garth Williams'. The author was E. B. White; the book was Stuart Little." The Whites had wanted Robert Lawson to work on the project, but had burned through eight illustrators. The book became a success with adults as well as children. Williams later said that seeing grownups on buses and trains reading Stuart Little persuaded him to continue as a freelance illustrator.