Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children's Literature

24. Theorems in Color, Poems on Stage

231 24 Theorems in Color, Poems on Stage Modern art . . . non-representational forms. A development that puzzles the uninitiated. —Mr. O’Malley, in Jack Morley and Crockett Johnson, Barnaby, 11 March 1949 On the afternoon of 5 April 1967, Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss arrived at the Glezer Gallery, 271 Fifth Avenue, New York. He wore a dark shirt, with a lighter tie and jacket. She wore a simple necklace, a light-colored, loose-fitting dress, stockings, and shoes that were formal but not entirely comfortable. At 5:00, invited guests, mathematicians, and the press began to arrive. A mere sixteen months after deciding to pursue painting, Johnson was having his first show, Abstractions of Abstractions: Schematic Paintings Deriving from Axioms and Theorems of Geometry, from Pythagoras to Apollonius of Perga, and from Desargues and Kepler to the Twentieth Century.1 If he was nervous, the photographs do not betray any anxiety. Johnson grins broadly at the camera, lights a cigarette, talks with the guests: Jackie Curtis (who took the photos), Jimmy and Dallas Ernst, Shelley and Jackie Trubowitz, illustrator Bill Hogarth, Courant Institute mathematicians George Morikawa and Howard Levi, sculptor/children’s author-illustrator Harvey Weiss, and Broadway stage designer Ralph Alswang. If Ad Reinhardt was there, the photos do not record his presence. Having suffered a heart attack in January, he may not have been feeling well enough to attend.2 Michael Benedikt was also there, representing Art News. He thought the paintings had “a certain cool insouciance” but were also “intensely personal: Johnson spaces in a lively way, converts theorem-subjects to decorative motifs, alters colors. . . . The painting is a kind of cool Hard-Edge, but bouncy overall .” The Bridgeport Sunday Post liked“the fanciful, often lyrical geometric abstractions which flow from Johnson’s imagery.”3 Johnson seemed uncertain about his precise professional identity. Painter? Scholar of mathematics? Cartoonist? The exhibition program points to all 232 Theorems in Color, Poems on Stage three. Abstractions of Abstractions is a witty title for a show, but its subtitle sounds like a doctoral dissertation. The back of the program features a quotation from the Museum of Modern Art’s director of collections, Alfred Barr, “It’s obvious today that comics are art. Just because these things are vulgar doesn’t mean they are not art.”In this context, the comment alludes to the fact that royalties from children’s books and Barnaby certainly were underwriting Johnson’s new artistic career.4 Indicative of his bemused attitude toward his new and uncertain status as painter/math student/cartoonist, when people asked what he did for a living, he would invent a job title for himself. In the late 1960s, Johnson bought a secondhand Mercedes-Benz touring car which often needed repairs. At a party, someone who did not know him would ask,“What do you do for a living?” Ruth Krauss at the Glezer Gallery opening, 5 April 1967. Photo by Jackie Curtis. Used by permission of Jackie Curtis. 233 Theorems in Color, Poems on Stage Johnson’s reply: “I own a Mercedes-Benz.” That answer was easier than confessing his aspirations to be taken seriously as a painter.5 Krauss knew what she was: a poet and playwright, albeit one who continued to write for children. By the spring of 1967, she had turned in the text and artwork for This Thumbprint and had finished What a Fine Day For . . . , a collaboration with Remy Charlip (design and pictures) and Al Carmines (music ) that is a hybrid of her books for children and her poem plays for adults. Charlip’s loopy style and Carmines’s bouncy melody sustain Krauss’s sense of fun, as the book leads us through the day’s many possibilities.“What a fine day for . . . ,”it begins, and we turn the page to greet“a mouse and a cat / a ball and a bat.” The next page offers“a ball and a throw / a stop and a go.” Charlip gives a pair of feet to each letter and each noun, not only the mouse and cat but the ball, bat, glove, and arrows (for stop and go). These feet, queuing horizontally near the bottom of the page, reinforce the impression that they are performing on stage and that readers are the audience.6 Krauss had also created a dummy for a new book, I Write It, and was hoping to enlist Ezra Jack Keats as...