Williams decided to become a full-time illustrator of children's books. 'Stuart Little' was such an enormous success that Mr. In his review of 'Stuart Little' in The New York Times Book Review in 1945, Malcolm Cowley praised the book as 'one of the best children's books published this year,' but never mentioned the name of the illustrator (often Mr.

In a fortuitous coincidence, when the manuscript arrived the author had pinned a note to it saying, 'Try Garth Williams.' The author was E. Ursula Nordstrom, the editor of children's books at Harper and Row, was more encouraging, and told him she was expecting a manuscript that he might illustrate. Returning to the United States, he tried to become a cartoonist at The New Yorker, but his work was rejected, he said, because his style 'was considered too wild and European.' He did, however, publish small drawings in the magazine. During World War II, he was wounded in an air raid while serving as a Red Cross ambulance dispatcher in London. Graduating from the Royal Academy of Art, he was briefly the headmaster of the Luton Art School outside of London, resigning after he won a British Prix de Rome as a sculptor. As he said, 'Everybody in my home was always either painting or drawing.' His family moved to a farm in New Jersey, where he grew up, he said, as 'a typical Huckleberry Finn, roaming barefoot around the farm, watching the farmer milk his cows by hand.' Clearly he was soaking up bucolic atmosphere that much later would be used to his artistic advantage.Īfter his parents moved to England, he decided to become an architect, then switched to painting and sculpture.

Williams was the son of artists: his father was a cartoonist, his mother a landscape painter. humor, responsibility, respect for others, interest in the world at large.'īorn in New York City, Mr. 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. Williams also wrote the text for seven children's books, but it is primarily as an illustrator that his work is cherished. Williams: that dapper mouse Stuart Little the kindhearted spider Charlotte and her friend, Wilbur the pig and bears, dogs, kittens, crickets, elves, fairies, children and grown-ups in books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, George Selden, Charlotte Zolotow, Else H. Generations of children picture their favorite fictional characters as drawn by Mr. Williams's impeccable, heartwarming touch. Although the books were written by a diverse range of authors, the drawings all had Mr. Williams created a world of storybook characters. With the precision of Durer but with his own sense of innocence and wonderment, Mr. White's 'Stuart Little' and 'Charlotte's Web' and scores of other children's classics, died on Wednesday at his home in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Garth Williams, the artist who illustrated E.

Stuart little garth williams