William Steig ( ; November 14, 1907 – October 3, 2003) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, and children's book author best known for his picture book Shrek!, which inspired the film series of the same name. Steig was a prolific contributor of both cartoons and cover illustrations for The New Yorker magazine, and he developed a style of less humorous line drawings that became common on greeting cards as well as in his several published collections.

Steig began writing children's books at age 61, and went on to publish more than 30 other than Shrek!, including Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Abel's Island, CDC?, and Doctor De Soto. Steig was the U.S. nominee for the biennial and international Hans Christian Andersen Awards, as both a children's book illustrator in 1982 and a writer in 1988.

As a child, Steig dabbled in painting and was fascinated by literature, especially Pinocchio. He was an avid athlete, participating in touch football, swimming, and a collegiate All-American water polo team. At age 15, Steig graduated from Townsend Harris Hall Prep School. He was uninterested in schoolwork and never completed college despite attending three institutions, spending two years at City College of New York, three years at the National Academy of Design, and a mere five days at the Yale School of Art before dropping out of each one. After publishing his first work in The New Yorker in 1930, his work became a staple of the magazine. His comic series called "Small Fry" featured scrappy young characters on the street, inspired by Steig's youth in the Bronx. and went on to contribute more than 2,600 drawings and 117 covers to The New Yorker. In 1944 he published his first book of cartoons, Small Fry.

Symbolic drawings

In 1936, Steig moved away from traditional cartoons and began to create more emotionally honest "symbolic drawings", line drawings of complex or distressed characters, such as curmudgeonly hermits and kleptomaniacs. Following the release of The Lonely Ones (1942), Steig became a "cult celebrity" and was praised by E. E. cummings as one of the few Americans he respected. W. H. Auden compared Steig's drawings to The Disasters of War by Francisco Goya. Steig published a third collection, All Embarrassed (1944). During Steig's second and third marriages, each of which lasted less than three years, he published The Rejected Lovers (1951) about romantic love.

Children's books

Steig began writing children's books when he was 61 after being convinced to try it by fellow New Yorker cartoonist Robert Kraus, who had recently started an imprint called "Windmill Books" under Harper & Row in 1967. for the film adaptation of this book.He collaborated with his wife, Jeanne Steig, on several books including Consider the Lemming (1988) and Alpha Beta Chowder (1992).

Shrek

Steig published his best known children's story Shrek! (1990) at age 83. He said he earned $500,000 from DreamWorks Animation for movie rights to the book, which was adapted into the animated film Shrek (2001). After the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, Steig became the first sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that went on to generate over $1 billion from theatrical and ancillary markets after only one sequel.

Reception and influences

Artistic influences

Steig credited Pablo Picasso as his primary inspiration. He said he once ended a longterm friendship due to disagreements about Picasso's merits. He did 40 therapy sessions with Reich, and spent time every day in a contraption that he believed was altering levels of orgone. from whom he was later divorced. For a time, Steig lived at 75½ Bedford Street, purported to be the narrowest house in Manhattan. Steig's first marriage also made him a brother-in-law of Leo Rosten Steig and Mead were the parents of jazz flutist Jeremy Steig (playing the Pied Piper in Shrek Forever After) and a daughter, Lucinda. He married his second wife, Kari Homestead, in 1950, and they had a daughter, Margit Laura (now professionally known as Maggie Steig). After their divorce, he was married to Stephanie Healey from 1964 to 1966. His final marriage, to Jeanne Doron in 1968, endured for the rest of his life. In 1972, the couple moved from New York City to rural Connecticut. In 1992, they moved from Kent, Connecticut, to Back Bay, Boston.

Lifestyle and death

Steig typically drew every day, and was unsentimental about much of his work, calling his field "a dying art form". Shrek 2, which was released seven months after his death, was dedicated to his memory. Roland the Minstrel Pig (Windmill)

  • 1968 (September), CDB! (Windmill Books) – picture book
  • 1969, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (Windmill) – NBA finalist

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  • 1971, Amos and Boris
  • 1972, Dominic – NBA finalist

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  • William Steig at publisher Macmillan US
  • Obituary: William Steig 1907–2003 at The Comics Reporter
  • From The New Yorker to 'Shrek: The Art of William Steig, 2007–2008 exhibition at The Jewish Museum of New York
  • William Steig at Library of Congress Authorities, with 107 catalog records