It’s the birthday of artist Garth Williams (1912-1996), who illustrated such children’s classics as Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and the Little House books.

Williams was born in New York City to parents who were both artists. His father was a cartoonist, and his mother was a landscape painter. The family moved to a farm in New Jersey and then to England in 1922, where Williams went on to study architecture and eventually painting and sculpture, winning a British Prix de Rome for the latter. When World War II broke out, Williams served with the Red Cross ambulances in London for a time. After injuring his back in an air raid, he returned to the U.S.

It was then that Williams began trying to sell cartoons to he New Yorker; mostly they were rejected as “too wild and too European,” but a few smaller things were accepted, and Williams was fortunate to get noticed by children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom. Williams was ultimately chosen to illustrate E.B. White’s Stuart Little (1945) and then Charlotte’s Web (1952), about which Eudora Welty wrote in a review, “As a piece of work it is just about perfect.” The collaboration was challenging, however, as White and Williams went back and forth on how to walk the fine line between overly anthropomorphizing Charlotte and rendering her in too much horrifying detail (eight eyes, two fangs, and all that).

Williams went on to become one of the greatest American illustrators, though he was often not mentioned at all in rave reviews of the books he illustrated. He wrote and illustrated seven books himself but is better known for his illustrations of other authors’ books, including books by Margaret Wise Brown, Dorothy Kunhardt, Russell Hoban (Bedtime for Frances), George Seldon, Mary Stoltz, all the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Charlotte Zolotow, and others.

It was one of the books Williams wrote and illustrated himself, The Rabbits’ Wedding (1958), that generated a great deal of controversy because one of the rabbits had white fur and one of the rabbits had black fur, and the White Citizens Council in Alabama freaked out, about which just let me add in the strongest possible tone, grow up and disband, White Citizens Council. For goodness’ sake. (You know, all the other rabbits were probably living in sin, and these rabbits bothered to get married—by moonlight, no less—so did you even consider that, White Citizens Council? I didn’t think so.)

Williams married four times, had six children, and lived all over the world, including for many years in Guanajuato, Mexico. A biography entitled Garth Williams, American Illustrator: A Life by Elizabeth K. Wallace and James D. Wallace was published in 2016 and looks well worth reading. https://www.amazon.com/Rabbits-Wedding-Garth-Williams/dp/0060264950

Have a splendidly sunny Tuesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.