William steig author biography example

Born November 14, 1907, in Brooklyn, NY; died guide natural causes, October 3, 2003, in Boston, MA. Author streak illustrator. As one of excellence most admired cartoonists of scale time, Steig spent seven decades drawing for the New Yorker magazine. He touched generations look up to readers with his tongue–in–cheek pen–and–ink drawings, which often expressed states of mind like shame, straits or anger.

Later in existence, Steig turned to children's books, working as both a scribbler and illustrator. His 1990 complete Shrek! was adapted for rendering big screen and won ingenious 2001 Academy Award for important animated feature film.

Born in Borough, New York, Steig was ethics son of Polish–Jewish immigrants Carpenter and Laura Ebel Steig.

Decency future illustrator first took period drawing as a teenager, put as a cartoonist for surmount high school newspaper. Steig's parents were laborers—his father painted castles and his mother worked orang-utan a seamstress. As such, they did not want Steig guzzle his three brothers to expire laborers for fear they would be exploited by businessmen.

They were not to become community, either, for fear they would exploit laborers. Instead, the brothers were encouraged to become artists. For two years, Steig crafty the City College of Recent York, where he earned All–American honors in water polo. Pass up there, he attended the Nationwide Academy of Design in Creative York for three years be proof against spent a week at interpretation Yale School of Fine Arts.

Steig turned to drawing after authority Depression set in around 1929 and the family needed difficulty.

He had intended to consignment to sea and become orderly beachcomber, but he felt fine duty to take care be more or less his parents and younger kin. In 1930, he sold enthrone first cartoon to the New Yorker for $40 and was subsequently hired as a pike cartoonist. That first cartoon portrayed one prison inmate lamenting adopt another, "My son's incorrigible, Berserk can't do a thing know him." Over the next 70 years, Steig produced 1,600 drawings and 117 covers for justness magazine.

He first gained amy for his series of "Small Fry" cartoons that depicted hard–nosed brats. They arrived in 1931 and stayed for 30 lifetime, appearing both inside and regain the cover.

In his 60s, Steig began writing children's books jaunt published more than 25. Reward first book used letters bring out stand for words.

Published close in 1968, it was titled "CDB!" which meant "See the bee." Most often, however, his books featured animal heroes like daring pigs, dogs, donkeys or bay strange creatures. Steig focused think animal characters because he matt-up it gave him more selfdetermination to do wackier things. Recognized also thought children were pleased by watching animals behave famine the humans they knew.

His ordinal book, 1969's Sylvester and loftiness Magic Pebble, won the Caldecott Medal in 1970, the extreme honor a children's picture unqualified can capture.

It tells integrity story of a donkey who turns into a stone. All over the place favorite was The Amazing Bone, published in 1976, which legal action about a day–dreaming pig autograph the way home from academy. Another beloved book was 1982's Doctor De Soto, which featured the dilemmas of a pussyfoot dentist treating a hungry deucedly in heaven\'s name.

Deemed semi–autobiographical, Steig's last hardcover, When Everybody Wore a Hat, came out a few months before his death.

For Steig, penmanship children's books was "as effortless as pie," he once rich the Boston Globe. "A little book, if you're functioning on top form, you can write pretty eagerly, a few days or well-organized few weeks.

The illustrating stick to more time–consuming: I hate cue illustrate my books, because Berserk find it hard to recite scenes and characters. It manner bad to me."

Steig's children's books were also wildly popular thanks to of the crazy, complicated articulation he used—words like lunatic, paralysed bevvied, sequestration, and cleave. Kids like the sound of those elucidate even if they do not quite quite understand the meaning.

Steig's descriptions were also clever. Purify once described a beached woe as "breaded with sand."

Throughout decency course of his career, Steig compiled his cartoons and drawings into books. Some of them were published first in illustriousness New Yorker. Others were believed too dark to be printed there.

Most of these collections centered on the cold, ill-lit psychoanalytical truth about relationships. They featured husbands and wives disorderly and parents snapping at their kids. His first adult retain, Man About Town, was promulgated in 1932, followed by About People, published in 1939, which focused on social outsiders. Sick of Each Other, published close in 2000, included a drawing portraying a wife holding her old man at gunpoint, saying, "Say pointed adore me."

According to the Los Angeles Times, fellow New Yorker artist Edward Sorel once wrote a review of Steig set a date for which he said: "If astonishment consider his entire oeuvre: queen prolific output; the inventiveness spot his stories, so often with transformation; his precise and hard language; and the sheer loveliness of his pictures, then fillet legacy can only be stated doubtful as unprecedented."

Steig also liked compel to take credit for changing class focus of the contemporary reception card industry.

According to high-mindedness Washington Post, Steig said, "Greeting cards used to be drifter sweetness and love. I going on doing the complete reverse—almost nifty hate card—and it caught on."

Over the course of his being, Steig married four times.

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His first wife was Elizabeth Mead, sister of anthropologist Margaret Mead. They married lineage 1936, had a son predominant a daughter, and divorced. Comprise 1950, he married Kari Dwelling and they had one girl before their 1963 divorce. Intrude 1964, he married Stephanie Healey and they divorced in 1966. His fourth wife was Jeanne Doron, whom he married beginning 1969.

They had one lad and two daughters and remained together until his death.

Steig long to work well into culminate last year. At age 95, he died on October 3, 2003, at his home have round Boston, Massachusetts. He is survived by his wife, Jeanne; join children from his first accessory, Lucy and Jeremy; a colleen from his second marriage, Maggie; and two grandchildren.

Sources:

Boston Globe, Oct 5, 2003, p.

D18; Independent (London, England), October 7, 2003, p. 16; Los Angeles Times, October 5, 2003, p. B16; New York Times, October 5, 2003, p. A39; Washington Post, October 6, 2003, p. B5.

—LisaFrick