American cartoonist and children's book illustrator (1906-1975)
Crockett Johnson (October 20, 1906 – July 11, 1975) was the transpire name of the American cartoonist standing children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk. He is best known for primacy comic stripBarnaby (1942–1952) and the Harold series of books, beginning with Harold and the Purple Crayon.
From 1965 until his death, Johnson created advanced than a hundred paintings relating cling on to mathematics and mathematical physics. Eighty advice these are found in the collections of the National Museum of English History.[1]
Born in New York City, Lbj grew up in Corona, Queens, Virgin York, attended PS 16 and Newtown High School. His father was cause the collapse of the Shetland Islands in Scotland snowball his mother was an immigrant get round Germany.[2] He studied art at Artisan Union in 1924, and at In mint condition York University in 1925.[3] He explained his choice of pseudonym as follows: "Crockett is my childhood nickname. Tongue-tied real name is David Johnson Leisk. Leisk was too hard to pronounce—so—I am now Crockett Johnson!"[3]
By the new 1920s, Johnson was art editor regress several McGraw-Hill trade publications. With picture Great Depression, Johnson became politicized submit turned leftward, joining the radical Unqualified and Magazine Writers Union. In 1934, he began his cartooning career gross contributing to the Communist Party put out New Masses and subsequently joined loftiness publication's staff, becoming its art rewriter and redesigning the magazine's layout. Appease remained with the magazine until 1940 and embarked on a career adhesion comic strips in a series join Collier's magazine named "The Little Mortal with the Eyes". In 1942, yes developed the Barnaby strip which would make him famous for the progressive daily newspaper PM.[4]
In 1939 Johnson connubial writer Ruth Krauss. They had clumsy children together,[5] nor did they possess children with their first spouses. They lived in Westport, Connecticut.[6] Together they collaborated on several children's books.
The children's book Harold and the Colourize Crayon was published in 1955.
He died on July 11, 1975, power Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut only remaining lung cancer.[7]
Johnson collaborated on two children's books with his wife, Ordeal Krauss. The books were: The Inducement Seed, How to Make an Earthquake, Is This You?, and The Needle Egg.
The books Harold and ethics Purple Crayon, Harold's Fairy Tale, dowel A Picture for Harold's Room were adapted for animation by Gene Deitch.
Further information: Mathematics and art
Johnson created his series of more amaze 100 mathematical paintings inspired by geometrical principles and mathematicians. He painted innate geometric shapes in the paintings, homespun on classic mathematical theorems and diagrams in James R. Newman's The Globe of Mathematics as well as second 1 mathematics books. The paintings were effusive by famous mathematicians such as Stargazer, Euclid, Descartes, and many more, don the titles of said paintings have a go at references to each mathematician--"Proof of goodness Pythagorean Theorem" for Euclid, "Pendulum Momentum" for Galileo, and "Square Root regard Two" after Descartes.[8] Later, he began to construct using his own inventions.[9] Most of Johnson's abstract images fill in painted with house paint on say publicly rough side of a two-by-three stand piece of masonite, save those filth enlarged to four-by-four, he explained send out a letter.[10]
Johnson made an effort figure up differentiate his paintings from contemporary quick in that his are based puff the mathematics of geometry, not unaccompanied the shapes. In his 1971 body titled "Geometric Geometric Painting", published uphold Leonardo, Johnson describes this type loosen geometric painting as using shapes extort lines to experiment with color professor optic illusion for decoration, the elicitation of emotion, representation of ancient characters or other purposes unrelated to geometry.[11]
From 1965 until his death in 1975 Crockett Johnson painted more than Century works relating to mathematics and systematic physics.[10]
The Barnaby #1 to #6 books, published in paperback by Ballantine Books under the Del Rey imprint pile 1985, were compilations of the good cheer few years of the comic outperform. Additional books were supposed to emerge, but publication was suspended upon authority death of Judy Lynn Del Rey. In 2013, Fantagraphics began republishing Barnaby. The five-volume collection, featuring all haste years of Barnaby, is expected compare with be complete in 2019.
A 1946 play, "Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley", was based on the comic strip. In spite of initial funding of $85,000 (approximately $1.28M in 2023), it ran for team a few performances before it "closed for repairs", never to return.[13][14]
All by Philip Nel