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Minnesota Humanities Commission

Wanda Gag

Biographical Notes

Date of birth: March 11, 1893, New Ulm, Minnesota
Date of death: June 27, 1946, New York City, New York

Wanda Gag Wanda Hazel Gag. Author, illustrator, and artist. Wanda Gag was the oldest of seven children; her father and her maternal grandparents had immigrated from Bohemia. When she was fifteen, her father, Anton (a local artist and photographer), died, leaving the family penniless. Wanda took writing and illustrating jobs to support her family. She sold many illustrations to the Minneapolis Journal's Journal Junior a Sunday supplement section of the newspaper for juveniles. She won awards and an art scholarship. She attended the St. Paul School of Art (1913-14) and Minneapolis School of Art (1914-17) and received a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York City (1917-18). She contributed illustrations to the socialist magazines The Liberator and New Masses. A successful show at the Weyhe Gallery in New York in 1926 and publication in 1928 of her well-known and prototypical children's book Millions of Cats enabled her to give up work as a commercial artist and move to rural New Jersey, where she continued to produce drawings, lithographs, and children's books until her death in 1946. Her artwork is in a number of major museum collections.

Selected Works

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Wanda Gag book cover

Additional Resources

Wanda Gag's diary

Sources used to prepare this author entry

The following bibliography may include links to Web sites that are no longer operable or have changed location. The sources are shown as they existed in the fall of 1999 when the entries were compiled.
  • Contemporary Authors. Vol. 113. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1985.
  • de Grummond Collection. Wanda Gag Papers. 1991. Online. Accessed 9 Aug. 1999. http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/findaids/gag.htm
  • Gag, Wanda. Growing Pains. New York: Coward-McCann, 1940.
  • James, Edward T., ed. Notable American Women, 1607-1950; a Biographical Dictionary. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971.
  • Minneapolis Journal, 9 Dec. 1928, Magazine Section, p. 5.
  • Minneapolis Star Journal, 28 June 1946, p. 6.
  • Minnesota Authors. St. Paul: Library Division, State Department of Education, 1934.
  • Minnesota Center for the Book. Language of the Land Project, 1996. Online. Accessed 8 Feb. 1999. http://www.mnbooks.org/lol/au2-knh.htm
  • Minnesota History. Vol. 44, no. 7, p. 239.
  • O'Connor, William Van, ed. A History of the Arts in Minnesota. p. 32. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1958.
  • Pederson, Kern O. Makers of Minnesota. p. 89. Saint Paul: Marric Publishing Co., 1971.
  • Pollak, F., and G. Cornell, eds. Index of Twentieth Century Artists. p. 569. New York: Arno Press, 1970.
  • Richards, Carmen. Minnesota Writes. Minneapolis: Lund Press, 1945.
  • St. Paul Daily News, 30 Aug. 1931, Magazine Section, p. 1.
  • St. Paul Pioneer Press, 28 June 1946, p. 2.
  • St. Paul Pioneer Press, 24 Sept. 1956, p. 26.
  • Scott, Alma. Wanda Gag, the Story of an Artist. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1949.
  • Stutheit, Esther, ed. Who's Who in Minnesota. p. 852. Minneapolis: Minnesota Editorial Association, 1941.
  • The Wanda Gag House. Online. Accessed 2 Feb. 1999. http://newulmweb.com/citylights/gag/gag.htm
  • Weisman Art Museum. The Unseen Wanda Gag, 1996. Online. Accessed 10 Feb. 1999. http://hudson.acad.umn.edu/G%87g/Essay.html
This pilot database compiled and maintained by the Minnesota Historical Society.
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