Clement Hurd

About Clement Hurd

Clement Hurd (12 January 1908 to 5 February 1988) was an American illustrator and painter, born in New York City, best known for illustrating Margaret Wise Brown's The Runaway Bunny (1942) and Goodnight Moon (1947).

Hurd went to St Paul's School in New Hampshire and studied architecture at Yale, then went to Paris in 1931 and studied painting with Fernand Léger. Back in New York in 1933 he worked as a freelance decorative artist until Margaret Wise Brown, then at the publisher W. R. Scott, saw his paintings and encouraged him to try children's books. She wrote Bumble Bugs and Elephants (1938) for him, and in 1939 he illustrated Gertrude Stein's first children's book, The World Is Round.

His partnership with Brown produced The Runaway Bunny (1942), Goodnight Moon (1947) and My World (1949). In 1939 he married the writer Edith Thacher Hurd, whom he met at the Bank Street school; he illustrated about fifty of her books, including Benny the Bulldozer (1947), Johnny Lion's Book (Harper, 1965) and The Day the Sun Danced (1965). He also wrote and illustrated Run Run Run (1951). In all he illustrated more than 75 children's books. Their son, Thacher Hurd, became a children's author and illustrator too. Hurd died in San Francisco.

For collectors

Hurd's art appears in the first editions of The Runaway Bunny (1942), Goodnight Moon (1947) and My World (1949), and in the Harper first edition of Johnny Lion's Book (1965). Both Wikipedia and Bookology count Bumble Bugs and Elephants (1938) among the earliest modern baby board books.