Generations: Jules Feiffer, Kate Feiffer

Kate Feiffer

Kate Feiffer, a former Boston-based television news producer, playwright, and documentary film maker, is the author of eleven books for children, four of which have been illustrated by her father, Jules Feiffer. A lifelong doodler, Kate reluctantly allowed us to exhibit her work.

My love of drawing, my fascination with the beauty of a simple line, and my appreciation for whimsy and visual humor can be traced back to the days when I sat with my father at his drawing table. At the time my father, Jules, had a weekly cartoon in The Village Voice, and our routine included a daily drawing lesson. We would make cartoons of our own—he would draw one panel and I would do the next one. While my drawing lessons eventually ended, our artistic collaboration never stopped, and I have had the pleasure of working with my father on four picture books.

-Kate Feiffer

See more of Kate’s artwork here.

Jules Feiffer

Jules Feiffer’s innovative and influential comic strip Feiffer began as a weekly feature in the Village Voice in 1956, exploring Cold War angst, political manipulation and suppression, the use of language as a means of thought control, civil wrongs and civil rights, Vietnam, and how all of the above affected young men and women in the search for “meaningful relationships.” Giving up his strip after 40+ years, Feiffer went into theater and film: Little Murders, The White House Murder Case, Carnal Knowledge, Knock, Knock, Eliot Loves, Grown Ups and others.

Feiffer’s first foray into children’s books was to illustrate Norton Juster’s now classic The Phantom Tollbooth. His own books for children include the novels The Man in the Ceiling, A Barrel of Laughs A Vale of Tears, A Room With A Zoo, and the picture books I Lost My Bear, Meanwhile…, and Bark, George. He has collaborated with his daughter Kate Feiffer, Illustrating her Henry, The Dog With No Tail, By The Side Of The Road, and others.