Garth Williams; Illustrated Many Classics

Garth Williams, whose magical illustrations of pigs, cats, dogs and other animals enlivened classic children’s books including “Charlotte’s Web” and “Stuart Little,” has died. He was 84.

Williams died Wednesday at his hacienda in the town of Marfil in Guanajuato state, where he spent much of the past 35 years, said his wife, Leticia. He also had a home in San Antonio.

Williams recently suffered two bouts of pneumonia, his wife said. He had experienced chronic fatigue syndrome since a bout with hepatitis many years ago.

When his work was exhibited at Hollywood’s Every Picture Tells a Story gallery in 1994, Williams was too ill to attend.

With detail and wonder, Williams brought to life a long list of characters in 99 children’s books. Among them were memorable creatures from the works of E.B. White: Stuart Little, the mouse; Charlotte, the spider who wove in words, and Wilbur, the pig who would not be bacon. Williams’ other works ranged from Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House on the Prairie” to George Selden’s “The Cricket in Times Square.”

The illustrator once said he tried in his pictures to “awaken something of importance . . . humor, responsibility, respect for others, interest in the world at large.”

He was born April 16, 1912, in New York City to artists--his father was a cartoonist, his mother a landscape painter. His family later moved to a farm in New Jersey, where he was surrounded by the sort of bucolic scenes and farm animals that he would depict in his drawings.

Williams began his career as a sculptor in England, and after World War II, tried to break in as a cartoonist at the New Yorker. He had limited success, but struck up a relationship with an editor at Harper & Row who gave him the assignment of illustrating E.B. White’s “Stuart Little.”

The book was a such a hit that in 1952 White and Williams collaborated on “Charlotte’s Web,” a book about a spider who saves a pig by weaving words into her web.

In addition to his wife, Williams is survived by six children.