Maurice Sendak’s First Published Illustrations: Discover His Drawings for a 1947 Popular Science Book

McGraw-Hill/pub­lic domain; copy from the Niels Bohr Library & Archives

Once upon a time, long before Mau­rice Sendak illus­trat­ed Where The Wild Things Are (1963), he pub­lished, notes Ars Tech­ni­ca, “his first pro­fes­sion­al illus­tra­tions in a 1947 pop­u­lar sci­ence book about nuclear physics, Atom­ics for the Mil­lions.” Only 18 years old, Sendak pro­vid­ed the illus­tra­tions; his physics teacher, Hyman Ruch­lis authored the text, along with pro­fes­sor Maxwell Leigh Eidi­noff.

Accord­ing to sci­ence his­to­ri­an Ryan Dahn, “Sendak agreed to do the work for 1% of the roy­al­ties, of which he received an advance of $100, about $1600 today.” Not bad for a teenag­er cre­at­ing his first cred­it­ed work.

At Physics Today, you can read Dah­n’s new arti­cle on Sendak’s ear­ly physics illus­tra­tions. You can also read/view all of Atom­ics for the Mil­lions on the HathiTrust web­site.

Relat­ed Con­tent

The Only Draw­ing from Mau­rice Sendak’s Short-Lived Attempt to Illus­trate The Hob­bit

An Ani­mat­ed Christ­mas Fable by Mau­rice Sendak (1977)

Mau­rice Sendak Sent Beau­ti­ful­ly Illus­trat­ed Let­ters to Fans — So Beau­ti­ful a Kid Ate One