Hilary Knight
Encyclopedia
Hilary Knight is an American
writer
-artist
who is the illustrator of more than 50 books and the author of nine books. He is best known as the illustrator of Kay Thompson
's Eloise
(1955) and others in the Eloise series.
Knight has illustrated for a wide variety of clients, creating artwork for magazines, children's fashion advertisements, greeting cards, record albums and posters for Broadway musicals, including Gypsy, Irene, Half A Sixpence, Hallelujah Baby! and No, No Nanette.
as a child, Hilary was age six when he moved to Manhattan with his family. Knight recalled:
After study with George Grosz
and Reginald Marsh
at the Art Students League
, Knight labored as a ship painter while serving in the Navy
from 1944 to 1946. Returning to New York, he studied architectural drafting (at Delahanty Institute), interior design and theatre design, working for one summer as an assistant designer at an Ogunquit, Maine
theater. He painted murals in private homes and entered the field of magazine illustration, starting with Mademoiselle
in 1952, followed by House & Garden
, Gourmet
, McCalls and Woman's Home Companion. His work as a humorous illustrator was strongly influenced by the British cartoonist Ronald Searle
.
as Eloise received such negative reviews that Kay Thompson vowed never to allow another film or TV adaptation.
Three book sequels followed: Eloise in Paris (1957), Eloise at Christmastime (1958) and Eloise in Moscow (1959). Thompson and Knight teamed to create another sequel, Eloise Takes a Bawth, working with children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom. That title was announced in the Harper Books for Boys and Girls fall 1964 catalog, but in the mid-1960s, Thompson removed the three Eloise sequels from print and did not allow Eloise Takes a Bawth to be published. It was an action that deprived her collaborator of income for decades (a situation that changed with Thompson's death in 1998). In Salon, Amy Benfer speculated on Thompson's motives in "Will the real Eloise please stand up?" (June 1, 1999):
Eloise Takes a Bawth was finally published in 2002. Knight recalled:
Other publications with Knight illustrations include Good Housekeeping
and the children's magazine, Cricket
. In addition to creating children's picture books—among them, in collaboration with poet Margaret Fishback
, A Child's Book of Natural History (USA: Platt & Monk, 1969), a revision and extension of A Child's Primer of Natural History by Oliver Herford
—Knight has illustrated for other genres, such as Peg Bracken
's The I Hate to Cook Book. The roll call of artists Knight admires includes Ludwig Bemelmans
, Joseph Hirsch, Leo Lionni
, Robert Vickrey
and Garth Williams
.
) and Every Picture Tells a Story (Santa Monica, California
).
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
-artist
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
who is the illustrator of more than 50 books and the author of nine books. He is best known as the illustrator of Kay Thompson
Kay Thompson
Kay Thompson was an American author, composer, musician, actress and singer. She is best known as the creator of the Eloise children's books.-Background:Catherine Louise Fink was born in St...
's Eloise
Eloise (books)
Eloise is the name of the protagonist in a series of children's books written by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hilary Knight.Eloise is a six-year-old girl who lives in the "room on the tippy-top floor" of the Plaza Hotel in New York with her Nanny, her pug dog Weenie, and her turtle Skipperdee. A...
(1955) and others in the Eloise series.
Knight has illustrated for a wide variety of clients, creating artwork for magazines, children's fashion advertisements, greeting cards, record albums and posters for Broadway musicals, including Gypsy, Irene, Half A Sixpence, Hallelujah Baby! and No, No Nanette.
Influences
The son of artist-writers Clayton Knight and Katharine Sturges, Hilary Knight was born on Long Island in Hempstead. His father illustrated aviation books, and his mother was a fashion and book illustrator. Living in Roslyn, New YorkRoslyn, New York
Roslyn is a village in Nassau County, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the village population was 2,770...
as a child, Hilary was age six when he moved to Manhattan with his family. Knight recalled:
- As a child, I loved to look at a set of books which belonged to my mother. They were illustrated by Edmund DulacEdmund DulacEdmund Dulac was a French book illustrator.-Early life and career:Born in Toulouse, France, he began his career by studying law at the University of Toulouse. He also studied art, switching to it full time after he became bored with law, and having won prizes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts...
in a romantic, wonderful, detailed manner. I know he has influenced my style.
After study with George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and Reginald Marsh
Reginald Marsh (artist)
Reginald Marsh was an American painter, born in Paris, most notable for his depictions of life in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. Crowded Coney Island beach scenes, popular entertainments such as vaudeville and burlesque, women, and jobless men on the Bowery are subjects that reappear...
at the Art Students League
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
, Knight labored as a ship painter while serving in the Navy
Navy
A navy is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake- or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions...
from 1944 to 1946. Returning to New York, he studied architectural drafting (at Delahanty Institute), interior design and theatre design, working for one summer as an assistant designer at an Ogunquit, Maine
Ogunquit, Maine
Ogunquit is a town in York County, Maine, United States. As of the 2000 census its population was 1,226. The popularity of the town as a summer resort is epitomized by its motto, "Beautiful Place by the Sea."...
theater. He painted murals in private homes and entered the field of magazine illustration, starting with Mademoiselle
Mademoiselle (magazine)
Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
in 1952, followed by House & Garden
House & Garden (magazine)
House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....
, Gourmet
Gourmet (magazine)
Gourmet magazine was a monthly publication of Condé Nast and the first U.S. magazine devoted to food and wine. Founded by Earle R. MacAusland and first published in 1941, Gourmet also covered "good living" on a wider scale....
, McCalls and Woman's Home Companion. His work as a humorous illustrator was strongly influenced by the British cartoonist Ronald Searle
Ronald Searle
Ronald William Fordham Searle, CBE, RDI, is a British artist and cartoonist, best known as the creator of St Trinian's School. He is also the co-author of the Molesworth series....
.
Books
In 1955, he collaborated with Kay Thompson to create the whimsical black/white/pink look of Eloise. The live CBS television adaptation on Playhouse 90 (1956) with Evelyn RudieEvelyn Rudie
Evelyn Rudie is a playwright, director, songwriter, film and television actress and teacher. Since 1973, she has been the co-artistic director of the Santa Monica Playhouse...
as Eloise received such negative reviews that Kay Thompson vowed never to allow another film or TV adaptation.
Three book sequels followed: Eloise in Paris (1957), Eloise at Christmastime (1958) and Eloise in Moscow (1959). Thompson and Knight teamed to create another sequel, Eloise Takes a Bawth, working with children's book editor Ursula Nordstrom. That title was announced in the Harper Books for Boys and Girls fall 1964 catalog, but in the mid-1960s, Thompson removed the three Eloise sequels from print and did not allow Eloise Takes a Bawth to be published. It was an action that deprived her collaborator of income for decades (a situation that changed with Thompson's death in 1998). In Salon, Amy Benfer speculated on Thompson's motives in "Will the real Eloise please stand up?" (June 1, 1999):
- Kay Thompson got sick of us. Our initial admiration—a mass consumption of all things Eloise—was viewed as imitation and she did not consider it a form of flattery. Adults and children flooded the Plaza, all insisting that they were Eloise... I think she became jealous. So does Hilary Knight, Thompson's illustrator and collaborator. His pink-splashed black and white drawings of the child Maurice SendakMaurice SendakMaurice Bernard Sendak is an American writer and illustrator of children's literature. He is best known for his book Where the Wild Things Are, published in 1963.-Early life:...
called, "that brazen loose-limbed delicious little girl monster" provide the punch line to Thompson's allusive, scatting prose. Knight's contribution to a 1996 profile of Thompson in Vanity FairVanity Fair (magazine)Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast. The present Vanity Fair has been published since 1983 and there have been editions for four European countries as well as the U.S. edition. This revived the title which had ceased publication in 1935...
is an illustration that shows Thompson kicking the chair out from under Eloise to scrawl "I am Eloise" in lipstick on the vanity mirror in the Plaza's powder room. Knight's illustration may seem a little tawdry. But then again, Knight himself got into something of a tangle with Ms. Thompson over the ownership of Eloise. Their professional relationship effectively ended when Thompson pulled from publication a nearly completed manuscript of yet another sequel; this one was entitled Eloise Takes a Bawth. In later years, Thompson refused to return Knight's phone calls. Kay Thompson's sense of possession was so strong that she became unwilling to share Eloise, even with the person who literally animated the child in her head.
Eloise Takes a Bawth was finally published in 2002. Knight recalled:
- Kay and I were like parents to Eloise. We decided that we'd never make her older than six, and that we'd always keep the parents in the background. When you really study the book, you see that Eloise is somewhat wistful. And I guess my job now is to continue what Kay might have thought she was doing when she pulled the books in the first place—to protect Eloise.
Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...
and the children's magazine, Cricket
Cricket (magazine)
Cricket is an illustrated literary magazine for children published in the United States, founded in September 1973 by Marianne Carus, whose intent was to create "The New Yorker for children." Marianne Carus still serves as the magazine's editor-in-chief.Each issue of Cricket is 64 pages...
. In addition to creating children's picture books—among them, in collaboration with poet Margaret Fishback
Margaret Fishback
This article does not concern Margaret Fishback Powers, an author associated with the prose poem Footprints.Margaret Fishback, later Margaret Fishback Antolini , was a relatively well-published American poet and prose author from the late 1920s until the 1960s...
, A Child's Book of Natural History (USA: Platt & Monk, 1969), a revision and extension of A Child's Primer of Natural History by Oliver Herford
Oliver Herford
Oliver Herford was a British-born American writer, artist and illustrator who has been called "The American Oscar Wilde". As a frequent contributor to The Mentor, Life, and Ladies' Home Journal, he sometimes signed his artwork as "O Herford". In 1906 he wrote and illustrated the "Little Book of...
—Knight has illustrated for other genres, such as Peg Bracken
Peg Bracken
Ruth Eleanor "Peg" Bracken was an American author of humorous books on cooking, housekeeping, etiquette and travel.-Biography:...
's The I Hate to Cook Book. The roll call of artists Knight admires includes Ludwig Bemelmans
Ludwig Bemelmans
Ludwig Bemelmans was an Austrian author, an internationally known gourmet, and a writer and illustrator of children's books. He is most noted today for his Madeline books, six of which were published from 1939-1961...
, Joseph Hirsch, Leo Lionni
Leo Lionni
Leo Lionni was an author and illustrator of children's books. Born in Holland, he moved to Italy and lived there before moving to the United States in 1939, where he worked as an art director for several advertising agencies, and then for Fortune magazine. He returned to Italy in 1962 and started...
, Robert Vickrey
Robert Vickrey
Robert Remsen Vickrey was a Massachusetts-based artist and author who specialized in the ancient medium of egg tempera...
and Garth Williams
Garth Williams
Garth Montgomery Williams was an American artist who came to prominence in the American postwar era as an illustrator of children's books...
.
Galleries
Over decades, Knight maintained an apartment in midtown Manhattan which also serves as his studio and library, where he adds to his collection of books, sheet music, programs and soundtrack and cast recordings. He is represented by two galleries—the Giraffics Gallery (East Hampton, New YorkEast Hampton (town), New York
The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York...
) and Every Picture Tells a Story (Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica, California
Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...
).