My Retro Reads

"Jack and Jill and Other Nursey Rhymes" illustrated by Anne Sellers Leaf (1958)

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"Colors Are Nice" by Adelaide Holl, illustrated by Leonard Shortall (1962)

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"Riddles, Riddles from A to Z" by Carl Memling, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1962)

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TRINA SCHART HYMAN (1939 - 2004) illustrated over 150 books during her long career, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She received the 1985 Caldecott Medal for Saint George and the Dragon and was awarded Caldecott Honors three times. During the 1970s she developed a reputation as a talented and versatile illustrator for the children's magazine Cricket. Later she provided art for tales by such noted writers as Hans Christian Andersen, Mark Twain, and John Updike.
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"Easy Answers to Hard Questions" pictures by Susan Perl, text by Susanne Kirtland (1968)

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SUSAN PERL né SUSANNE PERLMANN was born and attended school in Vienna. Her family succeeded in emigrating to Italy in 1939 through Italy with the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Her sister Erica Merkling also became an illustrator there.

Susan Perl worked as an illustrator at Condé Nast for Vogue, House & Garden and Glamor until 1952. After a stay at the CG Jung Institute in Zurich from 1952 to 1954, she became a freelance illustrator in the USA. She lived in Manhattan .

Perl also worked for advertising and product design. From 1966, her drawings accompanied a PR campaign by the children's clothing manufacturer Healthtex under the title The Handy Answers to Hard Questions Asked by Children in the Health-tex Years .

She has drawn for the magazines Harper's Bazar, Reader's Digest, Columbia Pictures , LIFE and for the children's page in The New York Times Sunday Magazine. She was particularly known for her children's and animal motifs and illustrated a large number of books, including some of her own children's books and also her own comic The Sex Life of the American Female.

"Love is a Special Way of Feeling" by Joan Walsh Anglund (1960)

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JOAN WALSH ANGLUND (1926 - ) was born in Hinsdale, Illinois, the daughter of Thomas F. Anglund, a commercial artist, and Mildred Pfiefer Walsh, a painter. In 1944 she attended the Chicago Art Institute, later transferring to the American Academy of Art in 1945. While studying in Chicago, she became an apprentice commercial artist under the tutelage of Adele Roth. She met Robert Anglund and the couple was married in 1947. Anglund's literary career began after she was inspired to write by a group of neighborhood children playing near her home. While watching the children, she wrote the text for A Friend Is Someone Who Likes You (1958). Many of her illustrations are based on people and places from her own life—particularly her two children, Joy and Todd. As the popularity of her children's works continued to grow, Anglund's artwork began appearing on a wide range of consumer merchandise, including dolls, plates, greeting cards, notebooks, ceramics, calendars, prints, and Christmas ornaments. Beginning in 1979, Anglund started writing and illustrating a special quarterly segment for Good Housekeeping magazine and her artwork has since been featured in Ladies Home Journal, Woman's Day and Family Circle. Her books have been translated into several languages, published in over fourteen countries, and have sold more than forty million copies worldwide.
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"The Joke Book" compiled by Oscar Weigle, illustrated by Bill & Bonnie Rutherford (1963)

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"The Romper Room Do Bee Book of Manners" by Nancy Claster, illustrated by Art Seiden (1960)

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ART SEIDEN (1923 - 2004) was born in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BA at Queens College and studied for eight years at the Art Students League. Upon entering the illustration field he did corporate and advertising work for some of the largest companies in America: Phillip Morris, Hoffmann-LaRoche, General Motors and Hearst Publications.

Seiden distinctive style is most recognized and well-known in the field of children's book illustration. The first title he illustrated was Three Mice and a Rat by Margaret Wise Brown and Jean H. Berg in 1950. Seiden illustrated over 300 books and was both author and artist of at least 22 children's books for every major publisher in America. Seiden spent the next fifty-plus years working with a multitude of authors and returned to work with Margaret Wise Brown with one final book, The Train to Timbuctoo, for Golden Books in 1999.

Seiden worked mainly in transparent watercolors and gouache. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society and The Society of Illustrators, among others.

"The Moon Singer" by Clyde Robert Bulla, illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (1969)

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"Christmas in the Bell Shop" by Hallmark Cards (1965)

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"The First Book of Christmas Joy" by Dorothy Wilson, illustrated by Mary Ronin (1961)

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MARY RONIN (1912 - 1992) was born in Sycamore, Illinois, to Jas Ronin, a horsetrainer and his wife Blanch Darling, and spent her childhood in Nebraska. After studying art at Omaha University, she arrived in New York, age twenty-five, and in June 1938 started working the advertising art department of Bloomingdale’s. From Bloomingdale’s, she moved to Young and Rubicam, where she took a position as an art director, one of the first female art directors in New York. After seven years with the advertising agency, she took a sabbatical year in France, returning to Manhattan in 1953 to freelance. Ronin worked thereafter as a book illustrator, and she is associated with a number of works published between 1959 and 1971.

"Thanksgiving: A Holiday Book" by Lee Wyndam, illustrated by Hazel Hoecker (1963)

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"My ABC Book" written & illustrated by Art Seiden (1953)

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"Now That Days Are Colder" by Aileen Fisher, Designed & Illustrated by Gordon Laite, Lettering by Paul Taylor (1973)

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GORDON LAITE (1925 - 1978) was born in New York City to Polish immigrants. Sometime during his early childhood Charles and Blanche Fisher Laite became his foster parents.
Charles Laite was a Broadway actor who appeared in four silent films. Charles died in 1937 of a heart attack at the stage door of the Cleveland House Theatre in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was an understudy for the play "In a Nutshell."
Blanche was the illustrator of one of the most popular children's book's ever sold, The Real Mother Goose by Rand McNally. Over 3,600,000 copies of this book have been sold since its first printing in 1916.
Gordon Laite attended Beloit College in Wisconsin and the Chicago Art Institute. He had a prolific career as an artist and illustrator of children's books.
Laite married his wife Jeanne in 1948 and the couple had three children. His later years were spent in Gallup, New Mexico until his death in 1978 at the age of 52.

"Gus Was a Friendly Ghost" by Jane Thayer, illustrated by Seymour Fleishman (1961)

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SEYMOUR FLEISHMAN (1918 - 2012) was born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago between 1935 and 1941, and then served with the U.S. Army in Australia and New Guinea during World War II, where he was a cartographer and illustrator. After the war, Fleishman returned to Chicago and worked as an artist in the promotional department of the Chicago Sun for three years. He married Esther Marcussen, the Sun's out-of-town circulation manager, in 1946, and the couple had two daughters.

Fleishman illustrated his first children's book, Helen Lobdell's Golden Conquest, in 1953. He subsequently illustrated more than 60 other children's books, including five that he also wrote. Perhaps his most famous illustrations were those of "Gus the Friendly Ghost," who was the star of a popular book series by Jane Thayer.

"Space Witch" written & illustrated by Don Freeman (1959)

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DON FREEMAN (1908 - 1978) as born in San Diego, California. He attended high school in St. Louis, Missouri. Freeman to New York City, following his fellow trumpet playing brother Harold, where Don found a job playing trumpet in a production of “The Beautiful People” at the Lyceum Theater.
Don studied graphic design and lithography at the Art Students League with Ashcan artist John Sloan and Harry Wickey. In 1930 he finished his first complete lithograph and, in 1931, found professional lithographer George C. Miller’s 14^th Street studio. He worked with Miller for many years.
Freeman's subjects included Broadway theater, politics, and the circus. He was known for carrying a sketchbook with him wherever he went. His images depicted New York City, and the faces of the people he observed on the streets, in the theaters, and in the subways. They often included images of showgirls, Bowery Boys, drunks, apple sellers, window washers and numerous citizens of the city that were down on their luck. Freeman was also a jazz musician and the brother of hotel entrepreneur Warren Freeman.
When Freeman lived in New York City during the 1930s, 40s and early 1950s, he was a brilliant illustrator of city life in the best traditions of Social Realism. His subjects were the actors and actresses of Broadway—from Orson Welles to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne to the man in the street or the charwomen who scrubbed the stage after the actors and the audience went home. His cartoons and other illustrations appeared regularly in the New York Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and Theater Magazine. Freeman also self-published Don Freeman's Newsstand, a short-lived quarterly magazine, each page of which was an original lithograph.
As Freeman's career progressed, he lightened his palette and depicted more upbeat subjects. In 1951, he began illustrating children's books. His wife, Lydia, who was also an accomplished artist, authored some of the books Freeman illustrated. Don Freeman was first introduced to children's literature when William Saroyan asked him to illustrate several books. However, his greatest influence came from the artist Honoré Daumier. Freeman studied many of Daumier's works as well as possessing a large collection of books on the artist.
Throughout Don Freeman's career he was the writer and illustrator of more than 20 children's books. He is best known for his publication of Corduroy. Although he came up with many of his ideas on his own, his wife Lydia Freeman contributed greatly to his success; indeed, she co-wrote two books with him, Chuggy and the Blue Caboose and Pet of the Met.
The Freemans eventually moved to Santa Barbara, California, where they spent the remainder of their lives. Don Freeman died in Santa Barbara on January 1, 1978.
In 1976, Freeman was recognized by the City of New York for his body of work portraying the city. The New York Daily News reported on the Citation from Mayor Abraham D. Beame, which was presented to Freeman at the opening of a one-man retrospective exhibition.In a measure of Freeman's national fame, The Christian Science Monitor covered the 1976 exhibition, as well as a 1978 retrospective, both of which showcased Freeman's drawings, oils, prints, and his limited-edition self-published periodical, Don Freeman's Newsstand.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales" by Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, 1954

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LEONARD WEISGARD (1916 - 2000) Leonard Weisgard was a Caldecott award-winning illustrator of more than 200 children’s books and was perhaps best known for his collaboration with the author Margaret Wise Brown.
Weisgard was born in New Haven, Connecticut but spent much of his early childhood in England, where his father originally came from. His interest in the quality of children’s books began after his family moved back to the USA when he was 8. As a schoolboy in New York, he was dissatisfied with the books supplied by the public schools he attended. He found the illustrations monotonous and thought that the world could not be all that dreary and limited to only one color.
He went on to study art at the Pratt Institute and the New School for Social Research, where he was influenced by primitive cave paintings, Gothic and Renaissance art and avant-garde French illustrators of children’s books of the 1920s.

Leonard Weisgard also studied dance with Martha Graham and worked in the field of window display. He began his career making illustrations for magazines such as Good Housekeeping, The New Yorker and Harper’s Bazaar.

His first book, Suki the Siamese Pussy, was published in 1937, and his first collaboration with Brown was two years later, The Noisy Book. He won the 1948 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing The Little Island, written by Brown. They collaborated again on The Important Book, published by Harper & Brothers in 1949. Altogether, Weisgard illustrated at least 14 of Brown's books, including two that were published posthumously.

He used a wide range of colors and media in his books, including gouache, poster paint, crayon, chalk, decoupage, stenciling and pen and ink.

The Dream of Little Tuk

The Emperor's New Clothes

The Swineherd

The Real Princess

The Shoes of Fortune

The Fir Tree

The Snow Queen

The Leap-Frog

The Elderbush

The Bell

The Old House

The Happy Family

The Story of a Mother

The False Collar

The Shador

The Little Match Girl

The Dream of Little Tuk

The Naughty Boy

The Red Shoes

"Magic Secrets" by Rose Wyler & Gerald Ames, illustrated by Tālivaldis Stubis (1967)

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TĀLIVALDIS STUBIS was a prolific graphic designer and artist. He illustrated nearly two dozen books over his long career, including Sir Alva and the Wicked Wizard by Otto Friedrich, Sam’s Place by Lillian Moore, and many by the husband-and-wife team Rose Wyler and Gerald Ames. In 1962 his A Pocketful of Seasons was named one of the New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the Year. His books were published by many of the leading houses of the day, including Harper & Row, Lothrop Lee and Shepard, Scholastic, Atheneum, Seabury Press, Parents Magazine Press, and Doubleday.

In addition to his work for children, he also designed many iconic movie and theater posters, including, for Broadway, Funny Girl, Camelot, and Anyone Can Whistle; and for Hollywood, The Sting and The Exorcist.

He died after a long battle with amyloidosis in 2009 at the age of 83.

"The Blue Book of Fairy Tales" illustrated by Gordon Laite (1959)

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"A Dragon in a Wagon" by Janette Rainwater, illustrated by John Martin Gilbert (1973)

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"Richard Scarry's Chipmunk's ABC" by Roberta Miller, illustrated by Richard Scarry (1963)

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RICHARD SCARRY (1919 - 1994) is one of the world’s best-loved children’s authors EVER! Generations of children worldwide - including this blogger! - have grown up spending hours poring over his books filled with all the colorful details of their daily lives. No other illustrator has shown such a lively interest in the words and concepts of early childhood. (Whenever he was asked how old he was, Scarry would always put up one hand and laugh, saying, “five!”)

Born in 1919, Richard Scarry was raised and educated in Boston, Massachusetts. After five years of drawing maps and designing graphics for the US Army, he moved to New York to pursue a career in commercial art. But after showing his portfolio to one of the original editors at Golden Books, he found the perfect home for his work. The assignments first given to Scarry tended to be Little Golden Books that featured popular characters of the day, such as Winky Dink, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Smokey the Bear. Eventually, Scarry created his own original characters, such as Lowly Worm and Huckle Cat. But first came Nicholas, a young rabbit clad in red overalls, for the now-iconic classic I Am a Bunny.

In his extraordinary career, Richard Scarry illustrated more than 150 books, many of which have never been out of print. His books have sold over 100 million copies around the world and are currently published in more than twenty languages. Richard Scarry Jr., also an illustrator, carries on his father’s work today under the name of Huck Scarry. Richard Scarry passed away at his home in Gstaad, Switzerland in 1994. He was posthumously awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Illustrators in 2012.
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"Childrcraft: Poems of Early Childhood," edited by J. Morris Jones, illustrations by Eloise Wilkin, Leonard Weisgard, Janice Holland, Milo Winter, Henry C. Pitz, William Moyers, Esther Friend, Urlsula Koering, Tasha Tudor, R.T. Dixon, 1954

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Illustration by Leonard Weisgard

Illustration by Eloise Wilkin

Illustration by Leonard Weisgard

Illustration by Eloise Wilkin

Illustration by Leonard Weisgard

Illustration by Janice Holland

Illustration by Milo Winter

Illustration by Henry C. Pitz

Illustration by William Moyers

Illustration by Esther Friend

Illustration by Ursula Koering

Illustration by Eloise Wilkin

Illustration by Henry C. Pitz

Illustration by Tasha Tudor

Illustration by Henry C. Pitz

Illustration by R.T. Dixon

"Music Round the Town" edited by Max T. Krone, Irving Wolfe, Beatrice Perham Krone & Margaret Fullerton, illustrated by Val Samuelson (1963)

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VAL SAMUELSON (1913 - 2000) was born in Barrett, Minnesota. He studied at the Minnesota School of Art and the Institute of Fine Arts. He worked as a sign painter in Minnesota and as art director for two advertising agencies in Los Angeles before he surfaced in Palm Springs in 1953. He suffered from eye problems and had endured several years of complete blindness. Samuelson healed himself, to a degree, with eye exercises and hypnosis–a lifelong interest.
Samuelson had a diverse career, working as a professional photographer, a cartoonist, a children’s book illustrator and a board game designer. He starred in the Art in Action show for Palm Springs’ TV station KMIR. As well as teaching many fledgling painters in private classes, Samuelson was one of the dreamers behind the Idyllwild Arts Academy, the first independent boarding high school for the arts in the western United States.

"What Makes Day and Night" by Franklyn M. Branley, illustrated by Helen Borten (1961)

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HELEN BORTEN (1930 - ) was born in Philadephia, PA, and graduated from the Philadelphia Museum College of Art. Borten launched her career with the 1956 publication of Little-Big Feather, written by Joseph Longstreth and illustrated by Borten. The New York Times chose it as a Best Illustrated Book for that year. Do You Hear What I Hear?, which Borten both wrote and illustrated, was published in 1959, followed by Do You See What I See? the following year. The main body of her work occurred in the 1960’s, working alongside writers like Franklyn M. Branley and Augusta Goldin to illustrate the comprehensive series of Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science books.

"A Book of Children's Rhymes & Verse" illustrated by Janet & Anne Grahame Johnstone (1977)

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JANET GRAHAME JOHNSTONE (1928 – 1979) and ANNE GRAHAME JOHNSTONE (1928 – 1998) were twin sisters and British children's book illustrators best known for their delicate, detailed prolific artwork and for illustrating Dodie Smith's classic book The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

The twins were born in 1928 to successful British portraitist and costume designer Doris Zinkeisen and her husband, Captain Edward Grahame Johnstone. They attended the Heathfield School in Ascot, Berkshire during World War II; their artistic bent nurtured both at home and at school. Later, they attended Saint Martin's School of Art in London, where they studied period clothing styles before moving to Suffolk in 1966. The twins never married and lived with their mother until Janet's death in 1979 and Doris's death in 1991.

The Johnstone sisters' popularity took off in the early 1950s, when they were noticed by publishers and acquired a growing reputation as talented illustrators. They always worked together, passing drawings back and forth across their studio until both twins were satisfied with the final outcome. Janet specialized in animals and birds. Anne focused on the period costumes that so dominated their work. Because of their symbiotic collaboration, until the death of Janet in 1979, there was never a book illustrated under either one of their names alone.

The first important book the twins worked on was The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith, who was already a very successful playwright and author. In 1956 she invited them to illustrate her first children's book, and it was an immediate success, captivating parents and children alike. Eventually, Smith's book was made into a feature-length animated film by Walt Disney.

The twins' further success with later Smith books, The Starlight Barking and The Midnight Kittens, made them the most widely recognized illustrators of children's books in England at the time. Their business association developed into an enduring friendship until Smith died in November 1990.
Over the course of their career together, the sisters illustrated more than 100 books. These included classic fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, J. M. Barrie, Charles Kingsley, a series based on Biblical tales, Roger Lancelyn Green's Tales of the Greeks and Trojans (Purnell and Sons, London, 1963), as well as a large variety of rhyme and modern story-collections. Early commissions included Enid Blyton's Tales of Ancient Greece (1951), and new illustrations for a shocking old German children's morality book, Struwwelpeter (1950). The Johnstones illustrated many of Paul Gallico's magical children's stories, working on Manxmouse, The Man who was Magic, and Miracle in the Wilderness. Their most collectible book to date is Enid Blyton's 1979 Dean book, the ‘De Luxe edition’ of The Enchanted Wood.

Most of their work was done designing Christmas cards and illustrating numbers of large, brightly colored gift books, mainly published by Dean. Their full-page illustrations surrounding nursery rhymes, fairy tales or children's prayers were in the tradition of undemanding effusiveness set by older artists like Hilda Boswell, still hugely popular with the public though increasingly frowned on by critics.

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"English Fairy Tales" adapted by Ann MacLeod, illustrated by Ota Janeček (1965)

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