I was first introduced to the illustrations of Beth and Joe Krush in All-of-a-Kind Family Downtown. It's the only title of the five they did, and it fits in nicely with the work of Helen John, Mary Stevens and Gail Owens.
Beth and Joe were both born in 1918, Beth in Washington DC on March 31 and Joe in Camden, NJ on May 18. Both drew as children, but it was a passion for Beth, less so for Joe, though he won prizes for his drawings of boats and planes as a boy. They studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, where they met on the first day of class. They married during WWII, while Joe worked as a graphic designer for the O.S.S. (One fascinating aspect of his life is that he was the courtroom sketch artist during the Nuremberg Trials!) Beth, meanwhile, taught illustration and drawing at Moore College of Art.
Their book illustration work began after the war, with each publishing books in 1947. The two had quite a career and each did plenty individual illustration. Among other things, Joe decorated many LP covers and illustrated Andre Norton's first fantasy novel, while Beth collaborated with Sarah Scott Fisher (daughter of Dorothy Canfield Fisher) frequently. Both worked with Eudora Welty (though on different projects.) They actually planned to work separately, but collaborated to meet deadlines, and this was noticed and approved by editors.
Sometimes it's hard to tell how whose work is whose, especially when they collaborated on the same drawing. Beth explained their process, "usually they pick the incidents and talk over the staging together. Then, Joe does the first composition and perspective sketch; and Beth reworks that, adding her two cents and looking up costumes, furniture, plants, animals, and people. Most often Joe does the final rendering in his own decorative line."
Recently, I was surprised to discover that they had illustrated a Beverly Cleary book, Emily's Runaway Imagination. Newly reprinted paperbacks, which definitely have a fresh look, are by a different illustrator, but the Krush pictures have been there a long time! And this wasn't their only collaboration. Together, they worked with Cleary on at least three other occasions, though these books seem geared older than Cleary's normal audience and don't appear to be readily available.
They are well-known for Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorensen, which won the 1957 Newbery Medal, and for their work on Elizabeth Enright's Gone-Away Lake and Return to Gone Away. (Reprints of these are easy to find, but earlier editions much harder.) They collaborated with many others, including Jean Fritz (Magic to Burn) and Eleanor Cameron of Mushroom Planet fame (The Terrible Churnadryne and The Mysterious Christmas Shell). But the Krushes are probably most famous for Mary Norton's Borrowers series, of which they did all five.
Their illustrations (at least the ones I've seen) are charming sketches, often seemingly simple, yet with an attention to detail both in costume and surroundings that bear a closer look.
Beth passed away in February 2009, but Joe lasted until he was nearly 104, passing early in 2022!
VIDEO TRIBUTE:
Joe Krush: A Life Well-Illustrated
Books illustrated by Joe Krush alone:
Florence Parry Heide (some with Roxanne Heide): Body in the Brillstone Garage, Fear at Brillstone, Face at the Brillstone Window, Brillstone Break-In, Black Magic at Brillstone, Time Bomb at Brillstone
Gerald James Holton (pseud: James Geralton): Story of Sound
Norma Kassirer: Magic Elizabeth
Mari´a Cristina Mena (1893-1965): Boy Heroes of Chapultepec, A Story of the Mexican War (Winston Adventure)
Andre Norton: Huon of the Horn (adaptation of Huon de Bordeaux)
Philip Rush: Minstrel Knight
Wilbur Schramm: Windwagon Smith and Other Yarns (1947)
Sally Scott: Chica
Geoffey Trease: Trumpets in the West, Secret Fiord, Shadow of the Hawk
Eudora Welty: The Ponder Heart
Jessamyn West: Cress Delahanty
Other books illustrated by Joe AND Beth Krush:
Carol Madden Adjoran: Cat Sitter Mystery
Marilyn D. Anderson: Come Home, Barkley
Peter Archer: Stagecoach Robbery
Elizabeth (Gillette) Baker: This Stranger, My Son
Eleanor Cameron: The Terrible Churnadryne, Mysterious Christmas Shell, The Beast with the Magical Horn, A Spell is Cast
Ruth Christopher Carlsen: Ride a Wild Horse
Betty Cavanna: Petey
Helen Chetin: Perihan's Promise, Turkish Relatives, and the Dirty Old Imam
Beverly Cleary: Fifteen, Jean and Johnny, Sister of the Bride
Elizabeth K. Cooper: Fish From Japan
Alberta Wilson Constant: Those Miller Girls, Motoring Millers
Harold Courlander: The Piece of Fire and Other Haitian Tales
Stuart A. Courtis and Garnette Watters: The Courtis-Watters Illustrated Golden Dictionary for Young Readers
Susan Fleming: The Pig at 37 Pinecrest Drive
Jean Fritz: Magic to Burn
Genevieve Gray: Sore Loser
Elizabeth Hall: Stand Up, Lucy
Barbara Kinney Hargis: Why We Celebrate Christmas
Florence Highwater: Secret of the Crazy Quilt, Mrs. Wappinger's Secret
Isabelle Holland: God, Mrs. Muskrat, and Aunt Dot
Elizabeth Honness: Mystery of the Pirate's Ghost, Mystery of the Secret Message
Barbara Jeffers: Half-Angel
Norma Kramer: Norma Kramer's Storybook for Threes and Fours, The 2d Nora Kramer storybook
John Langstaff: The Swapping Boy, Ol' Dan Tucker
E. H. Lansing: Small Circus
Irving A. Leitner: Lady Poole and Mr. Potts
Jane Stevenson McIlvaine: Front Page for Jennifer
Mary Lawrence Shipman Mian: Nip and Tuck War
Alice-Leone Moats: At Home Abroad
Lillian Moore: The Golden Picture Dictionary
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor: To Make a Wee Moon
Mary Norton: Poor Stainless: A New Story About the Borrowers
Robert Pierik: Rookfleas in the Cellar
Lillian Pohlmann: Summer of the White Reindeer
Louis Untermeyer: The Magic Circle: Stories and People in Poetry
Mary Phraner Warren: Snake Named Sam, Ghost Town for Sale, River School Detectives
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