Garth Williams

Who was 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. Many of the books he illustrated have become classics of American children's literature.

In Stuart Little, Charlotte’s Web, and in the Little House series of books of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Williams['s] drawings have become inseparable from how we think of those stories. In that respect... Williams['s] work belongs in the same class as Sir John Tenniel’s drawings for Alice in Wonderland, or Ernest Shepard’s illustrations for Winnie the Pooh.

His friendly, fuzzy baby animals populated a dozen Golden Books.

Mel Gussow in The New York Times wrote, "He believed that books 'given, or read, to children can have a profound influence.' For that reason, he said, he used his illustrations to try to 'awaken something of importance... humor, responsibility, respect for others, interest in the world at large.'"