Travis McCormick
The late Simms Taback and Keats were friends since the early 1960s, when their careers were about to take off. In Keats’s Neighborhood, the celebrated illustrator wrote about being “enlightened and encouraged” by Ezra—inspired not just by his technique but also “how straightforward, warm and child-friendly his pictures are.”
Learn more about Simms Taback at www.simmstaback.com.
I had just started illustrating my first children’s book, and Ezra was working on his artwork for The Snowy Day. When I visited Ezra in his studio one day, there were sheets of paper on which he had applied and freely splattered paint, tacked up on all his walls, waiting to dry. Was Ezra, the children’s book illustrator I knew, really an abstract painter? No. These sheets—in combinations of reds, browns, greens, etc.—were to be cut up in different shapes and used for collage in his illustrations. How refreshing and exciting it was for me to see how Ezra was working!”
