Ted’s simple use of pen and ink line drawings was a powerful way for him to create page-turning action that was attractive and engaging to a young audience. The flat colors used would pull us through his stories whether we were old enough to read the text or not, and this technique also solved the budgetary constraints of creating books that parents could easily afford for their children.

However, on very rare occasions, Ted was able to break with this tradition and create books with fully developed paintings in a wide spectrum of lush, blended colors. Happy Birthday to You! stands as one of the most important in that regard. Here, Ted takes his paintings to new heights, maintaining the fast paced action of his line drawings but infusing each page with a depth matched only by the private paintings he would create in his studio at night for his own enjoyment (known to most as his “secret art” or “midnight paintings”)

In 1957 Ted published two of his most renowned books, How The Grinch Stole Christmas and The Cat in the Hat. The results were unexpected. Ted catapulted to the top of children’s literature and also became one of America’s most renowned authors and illustrators. So powerful was the response to these works that Ted even transcended the literary genre to become a pop-culture icon.

Such accolades can be both flattering and off-putting.  They can create a sense of confidence on one level and disbelief in one’s ability on another.  “Am I really that good?” or, “How could I possibly follow-up that success?” are typical sentiments shared by many of us at times like these. 

Ted appeared to be no exception, creating a string of midnight paintings around the late 1950’s and early 1960’s that seem to reveal his own vulnerability.  Paintings such as Fooling Nobody, Lonely, Green Cat in Uleaborg Finland Subway and Self Portrait of the Artist Worrying About His Next Book all seem to deal with a mounting sense of self-doubt. 

Fooling Nobody, Lonely, Green Cat in Uleaborg Finland Subway
and Self Portrait of the Artist Worrying About His Next Book

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Related Works

This image from Happy Birthday to You! shares some of the most iconic elements from Ted’s private paintings created across his entire career. The color palette and compositional references in Prayer For a Child and Lonely can be found here, along with the dippy and curved architecture of Cat Detective in the Wrong Part of Town. The endlessly meandering lines of Chase in the Forest are foreshadowed in this much less complicated image, together with the use of strong, saturated blacks reminiscent of early works such as Stag at Eve and others from that same period.