{{Short description|American illustrator and caricaturist (1856–1915)}} {{Redirect|Denslow|other uses|Denslow (surname)}} {{Infobox artist | name = W. W. Denslow | image = W._W._Denslow_1900.png | alt = Black-and-white photograph of a man with a large mustache and a pipe in his mouth, at work, seated behind a cluttered desk on which a drawing board is propped at a slight angle. | caption = Denslow in 1900 | birth_name = William Wallace Denslow | birth_date = {{Birth date|1856|05|05|mf=y}} | birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1915|03|29|1856|05|05|mf=y}} | death_place = New York City, U.S. | resting_place = Kensico Cemetery | field = Illustration | training = {{ubl|National Academy of Design|Cooper Union}} | movement = | works = ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''<br />collaborations with L. Frank Baum | patrons = | influenced by = <!-- | influenced = Donald Abbott unsupported parameter --> | awards = }}
'''William Wallace Denslow''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|d|ɛ|n|s|l|oʊ}}; May 5, 1856 – March 29, 1915) was an American illustrator and caricaturist remembered for his work in collaboration with author L. Frank Baum, especially his illustrations of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''.<ref>Douglas G. Greene and Michael Patrick Hearn, ''W. W. Denslow'', Mount Pleasant, Clark Historical Library, Central Michigan University 1976.</ref> Denslow was an editorial cartoonist with a strong interest in politics,{{citation needed|date=January 2014}} which has fueled political interpretations of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz''.
==Biography== Born in Philadelphia to a tobacco wholesaler, Denslow spent brief periods at the National Academy of Design and the Cooper Union in New York, but was largely self-educated and self-trained. In the 1880s, he traveled about the United States as an artist and newspaper reporter; he came to Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and chose to stay. Denslow acquired his earliest reputation as a poster artist; he also designed books and bookplates, and was the first artist invited to work at the Roycroft Press.<ref>L. Frank Baum, ''The Annotated Wizard of Oz'', Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Patrick Hearn; revised edition, New York, W. W. Norton, 2000; pp. xxix-xxx.</ref>
Denslow may have met Baum at the Chicago Press Club, where both men were members. Besides ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'', Denslow also illustrated Baum's books ''By the Candelabra's Glare'', ''Father Goose: His Book'', and ''Dot and Tot of Merryland''. Baum and Denslow held the copyrights to most of these works jointly.
After Denslow quarreled with Baum over royalty shares from the 1902 stage adaptation of ''The Wizard of Oz'', for which Baum wrote the script and Denslow designed the sets and costumes, Baum determined not to work with him again. (As co-copyright-holder, Denslow demanded an equal share in royalties with Baum and composer Paul Tietjens.) Denslow illustrated an edition of traditional nursery rhymes titled ''Denslow's Mother Goose'' (1901), along with ''Denslow's Night Before Christmas'' (1902) and the 18-volume ''Denslow's Picture Books'' series (1903–04).<ref>''The Annotated Wizard of Oz'', pp. lii-lvi.</ref> He also used his copyright to the art of the Baum books to create newspaper comic strips featuring Father Goose and the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman during the first decade of the twentieth century. The strip, titled ''Denslow's Scarecrow and [the] Tin Man'', was intended to promote a forthcoming sequel he was writing.<ref name="GreeneMartin1977">{{cite book|author1=David L. Greene|author2=Dick Martin|title=The Oz Scrapbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oL4fAQAAIAAJ|year=1977|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-0-394-41054-8}}</ref> The strip ran concurrently with ''Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz''. He also created the comic strip ''Billy Bounce'', notable as one of the earliest comic strips in which the protagonist has some manner of super powers.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.toonopedia.com/b-bounce.htm |title=Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Billy Bounce |publisher=Toonopedia.com |access-date=2012-04-16}}</ref>
The royalties from the print and stage versions of ''The Wizard of Oz'' were sufficient to allow Denslow to purchase Bluck's Island, Bermuda,<ref>{{Citation | title = GeoNames | url = http://www.geonames.org/search.html?country=BM&q= | access-date = August 6, 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | title = In the Real Estate Field | journal = The New York Times | date = June 5, 1908 | url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1908/06/05/104729120.pdf | access-date = August 6, 2009 }}</ref> and crown himself '''King Denslow I'''.
Denslow wrote and illustrated a children's book called ''The Pearl and the Pumpkin''. {{Gallery | height = 250 | width = 200 | File:The Black sheep illustrated by William Wallace Denslow.jpg | The Black Sheep, from a 1901 edition of ''Mother Goose'' | File:There Was An Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe - WW Denslow - Project Gutenberg etext 18546.jpg | Denslow's illustration for "There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe", from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose | File:Cowardly lion2.jpg | Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion, from the first edition of ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' }}
==Personal life== [[File:William Wallace Denslow Footstone 2010.JPG|thumb|right|The footstone of William Wallace Denslow in Kensico Cemetery, featuring his seahorse insignia and images of the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman]]
Denslow had three wives and three divorces in his lifetime. His first wife, Annie McCartney (née, Anna M. Lowe, 1856–1908) married him in 1882 and gave birth to his only child, a son, the following year. The couple were already separated, however, and Denslow never saw his son. They finally divorced in 1896, freeing her to marry the man she lived with for five months. That same day, February 20, 1896, Denslow married Anne Holden Denslow, the daughter of Martha Holden, writer.<ref>{{Cite book|title=To please a child: a biography of L. Frank Baum, royal historian of Oz|author=Frank Joslyn Baum, Russell P. MacFall|page=97}}</ref> The marriage did not last long either. Anne filed for divorce in September 1903, alleging that he told her in June 1901 that he did not love her and henceforth declined to live with her. In less than a month she married a young artist, their friend, Lawrence Mazzanovich, and left with him for Paris. Denslow then married his third wife, Mrs. Frances G. Doolittle December 24.<ref>{{cite news |title=Artist Denslow Married |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73182271/artist-denslow-married/ |work=Harrisburg Daily Independent |date=30 December 1903 |page=9}}</ref> Frances left him in 1906 and they finally divorced in 1911. He changed his will in 1914, leaving his estate to a fourth woman.<ref name="Decree">{{cite news |title=Decree to Mrs. Denslow |newspaper=Chicago Daily Tribune |page=7 |date=1903-09-17 |url=https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/407329571.html?dids=407329571:407329571&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI |access-date=2010-12-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104144947/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/chicagotribune/access/407329571.html?dids=407329571%3A407329571&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS%3AAI |archive-date=2012-11-04 }} {{subscription required}}</ref>
==Death== Denslow died on March 29, 1915, in the Knickerbocker Hospital, New York City<ref>{{cite news |title=W. W. Denslow Dead |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/73182360/w-w-denslow-dead/ |work=Buffalo Morning Express and Illustrated Buffalo Express |date=2 April 1915 |page=7}}</ref> of pneumonia.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Man Behind the Man Behind Oz: W. W. Denslow at 150 |url=https://www.aiga.org/the-man-behind-the-man-behind-oz-w-w-denslow-at-150 |website=AIGA|author=Michael Patrick Hearn|date=July 5, 2006}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=W. W. Denslow |date=1976|author1= Douglas G. Greene |author2= Michael Patrick Hearn}}</ref>
He was buried in Kensico Cemetery. A cenotaph exists in Grove Street Cemetery, on the more elaborate family stone.
==Legacy== In 2018, "The Lost Art of Oz" project was initiated to locate and catalogue the surviving original artwork John R. Neill, W. W. Denslow, Frank Kramer, Richard 'Dirk' Gringhuis and Dick Martin created to illustrate the Oz book series.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.lostartofoz.com/about.html|title = About}}</ref> {{Clear}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
== External links == {{Commons category}} * {{Gutenberg author | id=8101 }} * {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Wallace Denslow}} * {{Librivox author |id=2451}} * [http://www.lostartofoz.com Original W.W. Denslow artwork from ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' on www.lostartofoz.com] * [http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/the-man-behind-the-man-behind-oz-w-w-denslow-at-150 Hearn, Michael Patrick. "The Man Behind the Man Behind Oz: W.W. Denslow at 150" AIGA July 5, 2006.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514130605/http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/the-man-behind-the-man-behind-oz-w-w-denslow-at-150 |date=May 14, 2011 }} * [http://www.dardhunter.com/wwdens.html DHS Denslow Seahorse<!-- bot-generated title -->] at www.dardhunter.com * [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/juv.96775 ''Denslow's Humpty Dumpty''] From the Collections at the Library of Congress * [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/goudy.25765 ''Denslow's Mother Goose''] From the Collections at the Library of Congress * [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/juv.96794 ''Denslow's Three Bears''] From the Collections at the Library of Congress
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Denslow, W. W.}} Category:1856 births Category:1915 deaths Category:American caricaturists Category:American editorial cartoonists Category:American children's book illustrators Category:American fantasy artists Category:American poster artists Category:American comic strip cartoonists Category:American costume designers Category:American children's writers Category:Artists from Philadelphia Category:Burials at Kensico Cemetery Category:National Academy of Design alumni Category:Oz (franchise) Category:Cooper Union alumni