22 Facts About Garth Williams

Garth Montgomery Williams was an American artist who came to prominence in the American postwar era as an illustrator of children's books.

Garth Williams's father was a cartoonist for Punch and his mother was a landscape painter.

Garth Williams studied architecture there, and worked for a time as an architect's assistant.

Garth Williams began his studies at Westminster School of Art in 1929 and, in 1931, was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Royal College of Art where he created a sculpture that was awarded the British Prix de Rome.

Garth Williams continued his education at the British School at Rome in Germany and Italy, until the outbreak of World War II in Europe.

Garth Williams drew for The New Yorker for a mutually unfulfilling period of time.

Garth Williams later said that seeing grownups on buses and trains reading Stuart Little persuaded him to continue as a freelance illustrator.

Garth Williams was part of a colony of expatriates who built or rebuilt homes in the ruins of the silver mines of colonial Mexico.

Garth Williams received the commission to illustrate the new Little House edition in about 1947.

Ursula Nordstrom's initial plan was for Garth Williams to produce eight oil paintings for each book, sixty-four in all.

Garth Williams illustrated the Little House books with a simple pencil, charcoal, and ink.

Garth Williams later illustrated the first edition of The First Four Years, which is commonly considered the last of nine books in the Little House series.

In 1958, Garth Williams wrote and illustrated a picture book that caused a small uproar: The Rabbits' Wedding.

Garth Williams had children from each marriage, totaling five daughters and one son.

Garth Williams met his first two wives while living in England.

Garth Williams's second wife Dorothea, formerly his children's nanny, was an Austrian Jewish artist whose affluent parents died in the Holocaust.

Garth Williams met his third and fourth wives while living in Mexico.

At 84 Garth Williams died at his home in Marfil, and was buried in Aspen, Colorado.

Garth Williams had five daughters: Fiona and Bettina from his first marriage; Jessica and Estyn from his second; Dilys from his fourth; and a son, Dylan, from his third marriage.

Garth Williams's initial reading of the material usually would suggest thirty or forty potential pictures.

Garth Williams used charcoal and graphite pencils, from fine to very soft, to illustrate the Little House books.

Garth Williams used pen and ink for The Cricket in Times Square, the Rescuers books, Charlotte's Web, and Stuart Little.