Below are five photographs of Crockett Johnson and one of his wife, Ruth Krauss. In each case, I have provided the source and, when available, the photographer. I have also attempted to date the photographs. To see a larger version of any photograph, click on it. Elsewhere on the Crockett Johnson Homepage, you can see a photograph of Johnson with a Mr. O’Malley doll; on the biography page is a self-portrait of Johnson.
Photo credit: Ann Rosener-Pix. This photograph appears on page 49 of Time magazine, 2 September 1946. It accompanies a short article titled “Escape Artist,” which discusses Johnson’s decision to hand over the writing of his strip to Jack Morely and Ted Ferro. If you look closely, you can see a drawing of Mr. O’Malley over Johnson’s left shoulder.Photo taken in 1944. From the back cover of Johnson’s Barkis: Some precise and some speculative interpretations of a dog’s bark at certain times and in certain [illustrated] circumstances (1955).Photo credit: Jackie Curtis. From page 1436 of Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, Volume 4, edited by Laurie Collier and Joyce Nakamara (Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993). This photograph probably was taken in 1970. The artwork behind Johnson is his painting Squared Circle (1969), based on his theorem about the square root of Pi (1970).
From the back inside flap of the dust jacket to Ruth Krauss’ How to Make an Earthquake (1954, illustrated by Johnson).Photo credit: Jerome Weidman. This oft-reproduced photo has been reprinted in Hopkins’ Books Are by People (Citation Press, 1969), De Montreville and Hill’s Third Book of Junior Authors (H.W. Wilson Co., 1972), Volumes 1 and 30 of Anne Commire’s Something About the Author (Detroit: Gale Research, 1971; 1983), and Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (HarperCollins, 1998). It seems to have been taken in the mid-1960s, though I can’t say for certain.This portrait of Ruth Krauss sits right next to the above photo in the entry on her and Johnson in Hopkins’ Books Are by People. It also appears in Dear Genius; on page 1364 of Major Authors and Illustrators, Volume 4; and on the dust jacket to How to Make an Earthquake (1954). It’s likely that this photograph was taken in the early 1950s, but I do not know for sure.
