Robert Lawson
Robert Lawson was a notable American illustrator and author, born on October 4, 1892, in New York City. Raised in Montclair, New Jersey, Lawson developed an early appreciation for literature and art, influenced by his mother’s passion for reading and painting. After graduating from high school, he pursued formal art education at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, leading to a career as a freelance illustrator in Greenwich Village. Lawson served in the military during World War I, creating camouflage for the Fortieth Engineers in France.
In his personal life, he married fellow artist Marie Abrams, and together they produced a significant body of commercial illustrations before transitioning to children's literature. Lawson gained recognition for his children's books, especially with "The Story of Ferdinand," which marked his international success. He achieved further acclaim with his own works, including "Ben and Me," and won prestigious awards such as the Caldecott and Newbery Awards, making him the only individual to have received both. Lawson's literary contributions include eighteen authored and illustrated books, and he continued to create until his passing on May 26, 1957, shortly after the death of his wife.
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Subject Terms
Robert Lawson
Fiction and Children's Literature Writer
- Born: October 4, 1892
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: May 26, 1957
- Place of death: Westport, Connecticut
Biography
Robert Lawson was born on October 4, 1892, in New York City. His father had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Soon after he was born, his family moved to Montclair, New Jersey, where he stayed through his high school graduation. By Lawson’s own recollection, he enjoyed reading and looking at illustrations when he was young, but he had no particular skill at writing or art. His mother, Emla Cecilia Bowman Lawson, was an avid reader in both English and French, and she painted and visited art museums. She encouraged her two sons in these pursuits as well.
After high school, Lawson enrolled in the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts (now called Parsons School) and studied drawing and illustration. After finishing art school in 1914, he moved to Greenwich Village and assumed the life of a freelance illustrator. He sold his first illustration—accompanying a poem on the invasion of Belgium—to Harper’s Weekly. During World War I, he served in France creating camouflage as part of the Fortieth Engineers. In 1922, he married another artist, Marie Abrams, and the couple moved the next year to Westport, Connecticut, where they worked side by side for more than thirty years. The two produced hundreds of commercial illustrations for greeting cards and advertisements during their first years of marriage so that they could buy a house.
When the Great Depression came in 1929, most of the couple’s work dried up, and they moved back to New York City, where there was more magazine work. Lawson began illustrating books in 1930, and in 1937 achieved his first international success with his black-and-white illustrations for his friend Munro Leaf’s The Story of Ferdinand. The book sold more than a quarter million copies in two years. The next year, Lawson did the illustration for Mr. Popper’s Penguins, by Florence and Richard Atwater. Robert and Marie moved back to the countryside of Westport, and built a home and garden they named “Rabbit Hill.”
The first book Lawson both wrote and illustrated was Ben and Me (1939), a humorous story of Benjamin Franklin, as told by his pet mouse. This led to several more books narrated by animals, including I Discover Columbus (1941), narrated by a parrot, and Captain Kidd’s Cat (1956), whose narrator was inspired by Lawson’s own cat, Blitzkreig. In 1956, Marie died, and Lawson died less than a year later on May 26, 1957. In less than thirty years, Lawson wrote and illustrated eighteen books for children, and illustrated forty books written by others. He won the 1941 Caldecott Award for They Were Strong and Good, a patriotic picture book based on family stories, and the 1945 Newbery Award for Rabbit Hill, a still-popular book about the small wild animals living on the Lawsons’ property and their struggles for prosperity. He is the only person to have won both awards. His last book, The Great Wheel (1957), was a Newbery Honor Book.