Walter Wick

Who is Walter Wick?

Walter Wick is an American artist and photographer best known for the elaborate images in two series of publications, the I Spy and the Can You See What I See? books, which were published by Scholastic Books.

Wick was born in Hartford, Connecticut and attended the Paier College of Art. After school he embarked on a career as a commercial photographer and eventually shifted to photo-illustration for books and magazines. He contributed to Scholastic's Let's Find Out and Super Science series and photographed hundreds of mass-market magazine covers. He also created photographic puzzles for Games magazine.

In 1991 Wick began a collaboration with writer Jean Marzollo on the enormously successful I Spy search-and-find picture books. Eight original titles were produced and millions of copies sold.

Wick has received the Boston Globe-Horn Book first prize for non-fiction and had his book Walter Wick's Optical Tricks named one of the year's "best illustrated books" by The New York Times. In 2003 Wick and his wife purchased an abandoned 1920 firehouse from the city of Hartford and renovated the building to become a new studio for his artwork.