Mercer Mayer was born on December 30th in Arkansas. His father was in the Navy, so his family moved around a lot. They moved to Hawaii when Mayer was thirteen and he later attended Honolulu Academy of Arts. He then moved to New York City to study art. He pounded the pavement with his portfolio after graduation and an art director advised him to throw out his art school portfolio and start over. Mayer worked advertising while he prepared new work. A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog, his wordless picturebook, was published in 1967. Mayer is credited as one of the creators of the wordless picturebook form.
Mayer, an artist with a broad range of illustrative styles, has gone on to illustrate over 300 books. In 1976, he began a series with Golden Publishing that now accounts for much of his publishing efforts. Sold in drugstores and grocery stores, the first book of the Little Critter series has sold over one million copies. In 1999, he published his first digitally illustrated book, Shibumi and the Kitemaker. Mayer lives and works in Connecticut where he is working on a second digital work.
