12 Facts About Crockett Johnson

Crockett Johnson was the pen name of the American cartoonist and children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk.

Crockett Johnson is best known for the comic strip Barnaby and the Harold series of books, beginning with Harold and the Purple Crayon.

From 1965 until his death, Johnson created more than a hundred paintings relating to mathematics and mathematical physics.

Crockett Johnson's father was from the Shetland Islands in Scotland and his mother was an immigrant from Germany.

Crockett Johnson studied art at Cooper Union in 1924, and at New York University in 1925.

Crockett Johnson remained with the magazine until 1940 and embarked on a career drawing comic strips in a series in Collier's magazine named "The Little Man with the Eyes".

Crockett Johnson died on July 11,1975, at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut of lung cancer.

Crockett Johnson collaborated on four children's books with his wife, Ruth Krauss.

Crockett Johnson created his series of more than 100 mathematical paintings inspired by geometric principles and mathematicians.

Crockett Johnson painted layered geometric shapes in the paintings, based on classic mathematical theorems and diagrams in James R Newman's The World of Mathematics as well as other mathematics books.

Crockett Johnson made an effort to differentiate his paintings from contemporary art in that his are based on the mathematics of geometry, not solely the shapes.

From 1965 until his death in 1975 Crockett Johnson painted more than 100 works relating to mathematics and mathematical physics.