Hardie Gramatky

Bernhard August "Hardie" Gramatky, Jr. (April 12, 1907 – April 29, 1979) was an American painter, writer, animator, and illustrator. In a 2006 article in Watercolor Magazine, Andrew Wyeth named him as one of America's 20 greatest watercolorists. He wrote and illustrated several children's books, most notably Little Toot.

Early life Hardie Gramatky was born in Dallas, Texas, the second of three sons born to Bernhard Gramatky and Blanche Gunner Gramatky. Ten years later, following the death of his father, his mother moved the family to the Wilmar – South San Gabriel area, a then semi-rural suburb a few miles east of Los Angeles. Gramatky attended local schools in Wilmar, and then Alhambra High School in nearby Alhambra.

Author and illustrator

By the 1940s, he was producing commercial art to be used for magazine illustrations and began writing and illustrating a series of children's books, including Hercules, Loopy, Creepers Jeep and Sparky. Gramatky's most successful book was his first, Little Toot, published in 1939. It became a perennial best seller, spawning several sequels, and was animated by Disney as part of the feature anthology Melody Time. During World War II, he worked in Hollywood producing training films for the United States Army Air Forces.

After the war, Gramatky returned to the East Coast, settling in Westport, Connecticut, where he would live for the rest of the life. He continued working as a commercial illustrator producing art for Fortune, Collier's, Woman's Day, True, American and Reader's Digest. He also wrote and illustrated several sequels to the original Little Toot story. Gramatky died of cancer on April 29, 1979. His last book, Little Toot and the Loch Ness Monster, was unfinished at the time of his death. Following the 50th anniversary of Little Toot it was completed by his wife and daughter, Dorothea Cooke Gramatky and Linda Gramatky Smith, and published in 1989.