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Ezra Jack Keats


Every once in a while I re-discover something from my childhood that cues me in to how I ended up doing what I do today.
I remember loving the illustrations of Ezra Jack Keats so vividly that they still stir up emotions. The style though, that's what gets me. I think I must have been influenced on a personal and visual level that rang so true to who I was (am) that my own work now seems to share some of the same aesthetics.
His books are difficult to find. There are many and it seems only three or so are still being printed. Here are some images
I took of the two books I have. A Snowy Day and Whistle For Willie.





Long before multicultural characters and themes were fashionable, Ezra Jack Keats crossed social boundaries by being the first American picture-book maker to give the black child a central place in children’s literature.
Ezra Jack Keats was born on March 11, 1916, to impoverished Polish immigrants of Jewish descent in East New York, which was then the Jewish quarter of Brooklyn, New York. He was the third child of Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy, and was then known as Jacob (Jack) Ezra Katz. It was evident early on that Jack was an artistically gifted child.
It was the time of the great depression of the 1930s, and Ezra’s family suffered extreme hardship, as did practically all families in the neighborhood. Although Ezra’s mother was supportive and encouraging of Ezra, his father wanted him to turn his head to more practical skills. Working as a waiter at Pete’s Coffee Shop in Greenwich Village, Benjamin Katz knew how hard earning a living could be. He felt that his son could never support himself as an artist.
Despite his desire to discourage Ezra, Benjamin brought home tubes of paint for his son under the pretense of having traded bowls of soup to starving artists. “If you don’t think artists starve, well, let me tell you. One man came in the other day and swapped me a tube of paint for a bowl of soup.”
After returning to the states Ezra painted covers for The Reader’s Digest, illustrations for The New York Times Book Review, Colliers 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. It was Ezra’s memory of being a target of discrimination that provided the basis for his sympathy and understanding for those who suffered similar hardships.
In 1954, Jubilant for Sure by Elisabeth Hubbard Lansing was published. The book, set in the mountains of Kentucky, was the first book Keats illustrated for children. Keats, in an unpublished autobiography, stated: “I didn’t even ask to get into children’s books.” In the years that followed, Keats was hired to illustrate many children’s books written by other authors, among them being the Danny Dunn adventure series.
The book featuring Peter, The Snowy Day, received the prestigious Caldecott Award 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 adolescence in Pet Show.
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.
The characters in Keats’ books come from the community around him. Many of his stories illustrate family life, the simple pleasures and more complex problems, that a child often encounters in his daily routine. To create his books, Keats drew upon his own childhood experiences, from having to flee from bullies to taking a ribbing from his pals for liking girls. But these are also the experiences of almost all children growing up in neighborhoods and communities in many parts of the world. This commonality explains the continuing popularity of Keats’ books and characters.


Ezra Jack Keats website