On this day, June 27, 1946, illustrator and author Wanda Hazel Gág died New York City. The daughter of artists and photographers, Wanda Gág attended the Saint Paul School of Art in Minnesota and then the Art Students League in New York. Her Newbery award winning book Millions of Cats was published in 1928.  

On this day, June 26, 1905, illustrator Lynd Ward was born in Chicago, Illinois. Ward studied art at Columbia Teachers College and for a year at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking in Leipzig. His illustrations were primarily produced by woodcuts. In 1929 Ward was inspired to create his own wordless novel, God’s Man:

On this day, June 25, 1874, Rose Cecil O’Neill was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and raised in Nebraska. He was largely self-taught. In 1893 she went east to New York City where she worked as a cartoonist eventually working for Puck magazine. O’Neill created the whimsical Kewpie characters which were made into dolls by a

On this day, June 24, 1925, illustrator John Wolcott Adams died in New York City. Descended from the American Adams family, Adams was a contemporary of Howard Pyle. John Wolcott Adams studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and then in New York at the Art Students League. He earned his

On this day, June 23, 1916, illustrator Gerald McCann was born in Queens, New York. McCann studied at Pratt Institute of Brooklyn and in 1939 he began to draw story illustrations for various pulp magazines. McCann served in the Army during WWII. After he continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York. During

On this day, June 21, 1910, illustrator Henry Sandham died in London. Canadian by birth, Sandham trained as a painter and photographer. He began creating illustrations for Scribner’s Monthly in 1877. Between 1880 and 1901, Sandham lived in Boston, after which he moved to London.  

On this day, June 20, 1973, illustrator Noah Z. Jones was born in Fairport, New York. Jones works as a book illustrator, animator, and a writer. He studied illustration at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. While at school Jones began writing and illustrating children’s books; in 2006 he began working on a children’s television show,

On this day, June 19, 1880, illustrator, type designer, and book designer William Addison Dwiggins was born in Martinsville, Ohio. Dwiggins studied at the Frank Holme School of Illustration in Chicago. In 1922 Dwiggins coined the term “graphic designer” in a short article in the Boston Globe. Between his achievements in graphic design and his creation

On this day, June 18, 1888, illustrator and author of children’s books about animals and natural history, Carl V. Burger was born in Maryville, Tennessee. He studied architecture at Cornell University and art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. He illustrated the young people’s novel Old Yeller by Fred Gipson and

On this day, June 17, 1927, comic writer and artist Wally Wood was born in Menahga, Minnesota. After high school Wood signed on with the U. S. Merchant Marines and then enlisted in the U. S. Army’s 11th Airborne Division. In 1947 Wood studied for a term at the Minneapolis School of Art and then