He might have been the star of his kindergarten class for his prowess at drawing Godzilla, but Portsmouth illustrator Robert Squier remains beset with remorse over what he deems a monstrous error in childhood judgement.
“When I was four or five, I was given Maurice Sendak’s “Where the Wild Things Are,” he recalled. “At that age, I didn’t understand the difference between a coloring book and a picture book. I enthusiastically scribbled Crayola circles all over Max and his Wild Things. Then guilt set in. I thought I had ruined the world’s only copy of this wondrous book. I resolved to become an artist so I could one day replace the book I had destroyed.”
Over the years Squier, a graphics designer in both traditional and digital media, has more than made up for his youthful indiscretion — and has even come to embrace drawing outside of the lines once in a while.
“So far, my illustrations have appeared in 15 published books for children,” he said, adding he hopes “somewhere, a kid has scribbled all over one of them.”
Hoping to inspire aspiring youths close to home, Squier will display some of the vibrant illustrations of prehistoric beasts he created for a 12-book series titled “Introducing Dinosaurs,” published by The Child’s World, in an exhibition at The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, 6 Washington St., Dover, from Monday, Feb. 1, through Wednesday, March 31.
NH Weekend recently caught up with Squier, who chatted about a childhood spent drawing monsters, aliens and dinosaurs, and the career that his early doodling helped shape.
NH Weekend: With your own illustrations having appeared in more than a dozen children’s books, do you think you’ve finally paid penance for scribbling over the illustrations in “Where the Wild Things Are?” (The much-loved 1963 children’s book, which was adapted into a feature film last year, centers on a boy named Max, who conjures from his imagination a world of fantastical, fearsome-looking creatures.)
Squier: I will always feel guilt and shame when it comes to Maurice Sendak. I met him once after he gave a rather grim speech about the state of the children’s publishing industry. I jokingly said his speech was demoralizing. Mr. Sendak got in my face, literally poked me in the chest and essentially told me to stop whining and get to work.
NH Weekend: Was that poke in the chest motivating or defeating?
Squier: My encounter with Sendak was sobering. The children’s publishing field is extremely competitive. Sendak’s mini-lecture inspired me to keep working on my craft, not for fame and fortune, but for the love of drawing and storytelling. Fame and fortune would be nice but there are more sensible careers I could have chosen to reach those goals. I draw because that’s what I love to do.
NH Weekend: I understand drawing runs in your family.
Squier: My grandfather, Donald G. Squier, briefly studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts but joined the Army when the first World War started. After the war, he moved to Greenwich Village, where he became a well-known artist. His clients included many prominent people in government and the military, including (President Taft and) Gen. George S. Patton.
In the early 1930s, after a fire destroyed his New York studio, he set up shop at the Fenway studios across Fenway Park and began working again. He was a well-known portrait artist in the New England area for many years, and died in 1987.
NH Weekend: What colleges/universities did you attend and what were some of your earliest projects?
Squier: I attended Maine College of Art and the University of New Hampshire. I wrote and illustrated a popular comic strip for the UNH newspaper that satirized drunken college students. The strip was controversial. At times, people thought I was glamorizing bad behavior — that is, until the characters started dying in alcohol-related accidents.
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Robert Squier’s illustrations will hang at The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, 6 Washington St., Dover, from Feb. 1 through March 31. Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 742-2002 or log onto www.childrens-museum.org. For more details about Squier, log onto www.robertsquier.com.
