Walter Brooks was born in the Maryhill section of Glasgow, Scotland in 1921; in 1924 he emigrated to the United States with his parents and younger brother, where they settled in northern New Jersey. He was educated in New Jersey public schools and graduated from Kearny High School in 1939. After graduation he immediately pursued a career in art, working during the day and taking night classes at the Cooper Union School of Art, New School and the Art Students League.
He enlisted in the army in 1942 and served initially in the 79th Infantry and 45th Infantry Divisions and later in the 11th Airborne Division as a counter intelligence officer in the Pacific Theater. The 11th Airborne trained in Papua New Guinea, was involved in the liberation of the Philippines and was part of the occupation army in Japan.
While in the service he sketched whenever possible. His illustrations appeared in the Army Times, and a collection of sketches done in Manilla was published in 1945.
After being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1946 he joined King Features Syndicate as an assistant art director, working on the Saturday Home Magazine. He also did illustrations for a Craig Rice magazine series and other syndicated features.
In 1947 he left King Features to work as a free-lance artist; his work included illustration and design for books, record albums (RCA Victor), and a variety of commercial accounts. He designed film sequences for television commercials for the United Nations, the American Cancer Society; other work included magazine material for Western Publishing and fiction features for the Daily News Syndicate.
In 1952 he joined Western Printing and Lithographing as Art Director for Dell Books, Laurel Editions and First Editions; in 1960 his responsibilities also included the job of Vice President for K.K. Publications, a subsidiary of Western Publishing, Art Director for Racine Press and Art Director for Golden Press.
In 1963, he left Western to work as a free-lance designer and illustrator, working from a studio in Silvermine, Norwalk, Connecticut.
He was a member of the board of directors of the American Institute for Graphic Arts (1960-63), Regional Chairman (Connecticut) for the International Design Conference (1960-62), a member of the Executive Committee of the Society of Illustrators (1965-70) and President of the Society of Illustrators (1970-72). He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Society of Illustrators, Trustee and President of the Museum of Illustration Art (1969), and Chairman of the Joint Ethics Committee (1976-79).
He was a member of the Fairfield Watercolor Group, the Rowayton Art Center and the Graphic Artists Guild.
As a free lance artist he did graphic design and illustration work for a variety of book publishers, including Simon and Schuster-Pocket Books, Bantam Books and Avon Books. He designed and illustrated material for Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovitch, and covers and interior illustration for holt, Rinehart and Winston Inc in the School Division. From 1969 to 1976 he was free lance Art Director for Penguin Books USA, responsible for all cover assignments and interior design.
His graphic design work included numerous U.S. postage stamps, including a stamp commemorating the founding of San Juan, Puerto Rico (1971). This was the first stamp reproduced from an original woodcut. Other stamps included Freedom of the Press (1975), Freedom of Assembly (1975), Right to Redress (1976), and the Indian Head Penny stamp (1978).
His awards include three “Ravens” and a Scroll of Excellence for jacket design from the Mystery Writers of America, an Award of Excellence from the Artist and Book Show (Society of Illustrators), Citations of Merit from the Illustrators Annual show (1966-71 and 1975), approximately forty awards from the American Institute of Graphic Art, and numerous awards for paintings entered in regional and national exhibits.
He gave lectures on art and design, including at New York University, Long Island University, Radcliffe Graduate school and the University of Bridgeport.
He has 32 woodcut prints in the “Ars Medica” collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, several paintings in collections retained by the U.S. Air Force and the National Park Service and many paintings in private collections.
In addition to many hardcover and paperback book covers and illustrations for a wide variety of publishers, he designed and illustrated several limited editions for the Franklin Library: Gargantua and Pantagruel (1978); The Iliad (1979); and The Odyssey (1979). He also designed, edited and produced a series of fourteen books on various aspects of painting, drawing and acrylic crafts; he also contributed finished art and painting demonstrations for many of the books in the series. These books were produced for Western Publishing and distributed by M. Grumbacher, Inc. Several of the titles were later published in a larger volume, expanded with new material and titled “The Art of Painting”; these were distributed by Crown Publishers. In 1974 he produced an additional series for Western Publishing, aimed at a younger market, titled “Creative Ways”.
Walter Brooks died in 1987. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife of 43 years, Lois Hendry Brooks (1921-2020) and two sons, Christopher and David.
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Walter H. Brooks 