The Artist

Garth Williams (1912-1996) is one of the most important children’s book illustrators in American history. Born in New York City, but raised in England. Williams attended the Westminster School of Art in London, England, where he focused on painting, earning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London where he then took an interest in sculpture. He also spent time studying art in Italy, France, and Germany (Silvey).

In 1943, Williams returned to the United States and began looking for illustrator and cartoonist jobs. In 1945, Ursula Nordstrom, the editor of children’s books at Harper and Row suggested Williams to author E. B. White, who selected him to create the drawings for Stuart Little.

Williams illustrated more than eighty books in the course of his life, including The Cricket in Times Square, by George Selden; Bedtime for Frances, by Russell Hoban; several collaborations with his friend Margaret Wise Brown (the author of Goodnight Moon), including the weird and wonderful Mister Dog and The Little Fur Family, and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, which Nordstrom commissioned him to re-illustrate in its entirety.

Possibly Williams’s most beloved artwork was drawn for E.B. White’s masterpiece, Charlotte’s Web, which was first published in 1952.  For Charlotte’s Web, Garth Williams created one of the most iconic and instantly recognizable book covers of the 20th century.