Crockett Johnson

The Barnaby #1 to #6 books, published in paperback by Ballantine Books under the Del Rey imprint in 1985, were compilations of the first few years of the comic strip. Additional books were supposed to appear, but publication was suspended upon the death of Judy Lynn Del Rey. In 2013, Fantagraphics began republishing Barnaby. The five-volume collection, featuring all ten years of Barnaby, is expected to be complete in 2019.

Johnson made an effort to differentiate his paintings from contemporary art in that his are based on the mathematics of geometry, not solely the shapes. In his 1971 article titled "Geometric Geometric Painting," published in Leonardo, Johnson describes this type of geometric painting as using shapes and lines to experiment with color and optic illusion for decoration, the evocation of emotion, representation of ancient symbols or other purposes unrelated to geometry.

From 1965 until his death Johnson created over a hundred paintings relating to mathematics and mathematical physics. Eighty of these are found in the collections of the National Museum of American History.

From 1965 until his death in 1975 Crockett Johnson painted over 100 works relating to mathematics and mathematical physics.

The children's book Harold and the Purple Crayon was published in 1955.

A 1946 play, "Barnaby and Mr. O'Malley", was based on the comic strip. It played in several East Coast cities, attracting attention mainly for a scene in which O'Malley flew over the audience throwing out leaflets urging support for his Congressional race. Johnson said the child cast as Barnaby looked more like the cartoon Barnaby than any real child he ever expected to see, Producer—Barney Josephson; Script--Jerome Chodorov; O'Malley--J. M. Kerrigan; Barnaby--Thomas Wm. Hamilton; Jane—Iris Mann; McSnoyd--Royal Dano

In 1943 Johnson married writer Ruth Krauss. They had no children together, nor did they have children with their first spouses. Together they collaborated on several children's books.

Born in New York City, Johnson grew up in Corona, Queens, New York, attended PS 16 and Newtown High School. He studied art at Cooper Union in 1924, and at New York University in 1925. He explained his choice of pseudonym as follows: "Crockett is my childhood nickname. My real name is David Johnson Leisk. Leisk was too hard to pronounce -- so -- I am now Crockett Johnson!"

By the late 1920s, Johnson was art editor at several McGraw-Hill trade publications. With the Great Depression, Johnson became politicized and turned leftward, joining the radical Book and Magazine Writers Union. In 1934, he began his cartooning career by contributing to the Communist Party publication New Masses and subsequently joined the publication's staff, becoming its art editor and redesigning the magazine's layout. He remained with the magazine until 1940 and embarked on a career drawing comic strips in a series in Collier's magazine named "The Little Man with the Eyes". In 1942, he developed the Barnaby strip which would make him famous for the left-wing daily newspaper PM.

Crockett Johnson (October 20, 1906 – July 11, 1975) was the pen name of the American cartoonist and children's book illustrator David Johnson Leisk. He is best known for the comic strip Barnaby (1942–1952) and the Harold series of books, beginning with Harold and the Purple Crayon.