In the course of a seventy-year career, Harrison Walter Cady (1877-1970) was best-known as the artist of Thornton Burgess‘s (1874-1965) Peter Cottontail, and the Peter Rabbit comic strip (1920-1948). Cady illustrated Burgess‘s fictions for almost fifty years, including books, comic strips and a newspaper daily called Bedtime Stories.
I am very fond of Cady‘s work. Recently, a collection of his life’s work was published, MADNESS IN CROWDS: The Teeming Mind of Harrison Cady by Denis Kitchen https://www.amazon.com/MADNESS-CROWDS-Teeming-Mind-Harrison/dp/1948886049 and I recommend it highly.
Earlier in his career Cady was hired by Life Magazine to be their staff artist. From 1883 to 1936 Life was a light entertainment magazine with an emphasis on humor. After 1936 it became a slick, photo-journalism weekly. Cady‘s work appeared in the earlier iteration.
Cady contributed to Boy’s Life and other popular magazines, and advertising.
Here are some images for us to admire. This is real cartooning.
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