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Joe Krush

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