Ezra Jack Keats
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Ezra Jack Keats (March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983), author of The Snowy Day, was an easel artist and one of the greatest children's literature authors and illustrators of the 20th century.
He is best known for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream children's literature. He was one of the first children’s book authors in the English-speaking world who used the urban setting for his stories; he developed the use of collage as a medium for illustration. His work is classic, and his name appears on lists of the most significant children’s books of the past century.
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[edit] Biography
Ezra was born Jacob Ezra Katz to impoverished Polish immigrants of Jewish descent in East New York, the third child of Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy. Jack was an artistically gifted child, excelling in art in elementary school and winning a medal for drawing in junior high school. During his years in high school during the Great Depression, one of his oil paintings depicting unemployed men warming themselves around a fire won the National Scholastic Art Contest.
Although Ezra was awarded three scholarships to art school, he was unable to accept them. He had to work to help support his family by day, and he took art classes at night when he could. In 1937, he secured a job with the Works Progress Administration (WPA) working as a mural painter. After three years, Ezra moved on to work as a comic book illustrator. In 1942, he began work on the staff of Fawcett Publications, illustrating backgrounds for the Captain Marvel comic strip.
Keats entered the service of the United States Army on April 13, 1943. Taking advantage of his skill as an artist, the army trained him to design camouflage patterns. After World War II, he returned to New York. Eager to expand his experience at easel painting, he spent one productive year in Paris. Many of his French paintings were later exhibited in this country. He painted covers for Reader's Digest, illustrations for The New York Times Book Review, Collier's and Playboy, among others, and was exhibited at the Associated American Artists Gallery in New York City in 1950 and 1954.
His easel paintings were sold through displays in Fifth Avenue shop windows, and provided him with a very welcome income. Two years after the war, Jack, in reaction to the anti-Semitic prejudices of the time, legally changed his name to Ezra Jack Keats. Elizabeth Riley of Crowell Publishing Company spotted one of Keats’ paintings in the window of the Doubleday Book Store on Fifth Avenue, and immediately hired Keats to illustrate the forthcoming Jubilant for Sure, authored by Elisabeth Hubbard Lansing (1954). It was the first book Keats illustrated for children. In the years that followed, Keats illustrated many children’s books.
My Dog Is Lost, Keats' first attempt at writing a children's book, which he coauthored with Pat Cherr, was published in 1960. The main character is a Puerto Rican boy named Juanito who has lost his dog in New York and meets children from different sections of New York, such as Chinatown and Little Italy. Keats was innovative in his focus on minority children that were typical of the melting pot population of New York.
| “ | Then began an experience that turned my life around—working on a book with a black kid as hero. None of the manuscripts I’d been illustrating featured any black kids—except for token blacks in the background. My book would have him there simply because he should have been there all along. Years before I had cut from a magazine a strip of photos of a little black boy. I often put them on my studio walls before I’d begun to illustrate children’s books. I just loved looking at him. This was the child who would be the hero of my book. | ” |
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—Keats, after the enthusiastic reception of My Dog Is Lost |
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In the two years that followed, Keats worked on the book featuring a little African-American boy named Peter. The inspiration for Peter came from the article that Keats had clipped from Life magazine in 1940.
The book featuring Peter, The Snowy Day, received the prestigious Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished picture book for children in 1963. Peter appears in six more books growing from a small boy in The Snowy Day to pre-adolescence in Letter to Amy. Following a child's growth was novel. The Snowy Day is a classic in children's literature, as are the books that follow it. In the books that Keats wrote and illustrated, he used his special artistic techniques to portray his subjects in a unique manner. One of these was his blending of gouache with collage. Gouache is an opaque watercolor mixed with a gum that produces an oil-like glaze.
Many of his stories illustrate family life and the simple pleasures that a child has in his daily routine. Children from all backgrounds can relate to a new brother or sister as told in Peter's Chair. Jennie's Hat illustrates the excitement of a child waiting for a present, and the anticipation of what the present would look like. Goggles tells the story of finding a pair of goggles, and the chase that follows the boys through the streets of a neighborhood, when the big bullies want to snatch the goggles from them. Keats drew upon his experiences, but these are also the experiences of children growing up in neighborhoods and communities in many parts of the world.
By the time of Keats' death following a heart attack in 1983, he had illustrated over 85 books for children, and written and illustrated 24 children's classics. He had just designed the sets for a musical version of The Trip, designed a poster for The New Theatre of Brooklyn, and written and illustrated The Giant Turnip, a beloved folktale.
Keats never married.
[edit] Honors, monuments, memorials
- His work traveled around the world as part of a United States State Department Exhibit.
- Keats was the first designer (by invitation) of greeting cards for UNICEF.
- A retrospective of Keats’ art was featured at the New York Public Library and at the Children’s Library of Manhattan.
- A novel Imagination Playground was set up by the Prospect Park Alliance, based on the characters from Keats’ books. The centerpiece is a much visited bronze statue of Peter, reading The Snowy Day, while sitting on a rock, with one hand on his pet dog, Willie, and his little chair (from Peter’s Chair) nearby.
- Keats is commemorated with a flagstone in the Celebrity Walk in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
- He was an invited speaker at the Iran International Book Festival.
- Japan named an ice-skating rink after him, commemorating the book Skates.
- Keats appeared on television with Mr. Rogers several times.
- He was awarded the University of Southern Mississippi Silver Medallion in 1980 as outstanding children’s book author/illustrator.
- Portland, Oregon honored his work with a city-wide parade, as did his readers in Tokyo, Japan.
- Keats' works have been translated into 19 languages, including Japanese, French, Danish, Norwegian, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Turkish, German, Swedish, Thai, Chinese and Korean.
- Awarded University of Southern Mississippi Silver Medallion, 1983
- Ezra Jack Keats International School (PS 253, Brooklyn, N.Y.)
[edit] Bibliography
[edit] Books written and illustrated
- A Letter to Amy
- Apt. 3
- Clementina's Cactus
- My Dog is Lost!
- The Snowy Day (winner, Caldecott Medal, 1963)
- Whistle for Willie (honor book, Caldecott Medal)
- John Henry, An American Legend
- Jennie's Hat
- God is in the Mountain
- Peter's Chair
- Goggles! (winner, Boston Globe-Horn Book Award; Hon. Mention, Caldecott Medal)
- Hi, Cat!
- Pet Show!
- Skates!
- Psst! Doggie!
- Dreams
- Kitten for a Day
- Louie
- The Trip
- Maggie and the Pirate
- Louie's Search
- Regards to the Man in the Moon
- One Red Sun
[edit] Books illustrated
- Jubilant for Sure (by Elisabeth Hubbard Lansing)
- Indian Two Feet and His Horse (by Margaret Friskey)
- In a Spring Garden (Richard Lewis, editor)
- The Little Drummer Boy (by Katherine Davis, Henry Ohorati and Harry Simeone)
- Over in the Meadow (by Olive A. Wadsworth)
- The King's Fountain (by Lloyd Alexander)
- The Naughty Boy: A Poem (by John Keats)
- Tia Maria's Garden (by Ann Nolan Clark)
- The Chinese Knew (by T.S. Pine and J. Levine)
- The Eskimos Knew (by T. S. Pine and J. Levine)
- The Flying Cow (by Ruth P. Collins)
- Our Rice Village in Cambodia (by R. Tooze)
- Jim Can Swim (by Helen D. Olds)
- The Egyptians Knew (by T.S. Pine and J. Levine)
- Speedy Digs Downside Up (by Maxine W. Kumin)
- Zoo, Where Are You? (by Ann McGovern)
- How to be a Nature Detective (by Millicent E. Selsam)
- In the Park: An Excursion in Four Languages (by Esther R. Hautzig)
- Two Tickets to Freedom: The True Story of Ellen and Willian Craft, Fugitive Slaves (by Florence B. Freedman)
- Penny Tunes and Princesses (by Myron Levoy)
- The Indians Knew (by T.S.Pine and J. Levine)
