Daugherty, James Henry

James Henry Daugherty (1889-1974) was born in Asheville, North Carolina, but grew up in Indiana and Ohio. When he was 9 the family moved to Washington D.C., where he studied at the Corcoran School of Art, and the Philadelphia Art Academy. He then spent two years in London studying under Frank Brangwyn. Daugherty's first publication was an illustration for John Flemming Wilson's series, Tad Sheldon, Boy Scout (1913). He then worked camouflaging ships and creating four murals in Loew's State Theatre, Cleveland, while illustrating fiction, and signed and unsigned magazine work. In 1925 he was asked to illustrate R.H. Horne's King Penguin which he describes as the first book he ever illustrated. In 1926 S.E. White's Daniel Boone, Wilderness Scout appeared, with Daugherty illustrations. He won the Newbery in 1940 for his self-illustrated Daniel Boone and was runner-up for two Caldecott Medals with Andy and the Lion, 1939, and Gillespie and the Guards, 1957.

Biographical sources: Something about the Author vol. 13; Current Biography, 1940, pp.221-222; Imprint: Oregon, vol. 2, no. 2 (Fall, 1975); Daugherty, James. Inscription in King Penguin. The inscribed copy is in the Kerlan Collection, University of Minnesota.

From the guide to the James Henry Daugherty papers, 1926-1964, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])