EXPIRED: 12/25/11 – Simms Taback, 79, was born in the Bronx, graduated from Cooper Union and started his illustrating career at CBS Records and The New York Times.
He founded the New York Graphic Artists Guild and supplemented that ‘starving artist income’ by teaching art at the School of Visual Arts.
Later Taback wrote and illustrated over 40 children’s books, including Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, I Miss You Every Day and This Is The House That Jack Built.
Perhaps he chose to focus on children’s books because of guilt over the damage he inadvertently caused to children over the decades. You see, back in 1977 Taback designed the child-enticing, riddle-encrusted, first box for McDonald’s Happy Meals.
That piece of art is ridiculously – shamefully – now sitting in the Smithsonian.
