Illustrator Harry Anderson was born in 1906 in Chicago to Swedish parents. Talent for mathematics seemed to run in the family, so young Harry naturally later chose it for his college major, studying at the University of Illinois in 1925. Then he took an art course as an easy counterpoint to the math classes, and discovered both a talent and a love for drawing.
With the change in major came a change in venue.  He moved to Syracuse, New York, to attend the Syracuse School of Art in 1927.  It was a classical art education with the entire first year devoted to drawing from casts -- a practice of presenting the student with a bust or other piece of sculpture in various lighting and having them render it in different media.  It is a grueling technique despised by most students for its repetitious boredom, but it instills basic drawing skills that are crucial to an illustrator's success.  With the second year's classes, came figure drawing and anatomy classes as detailed as those for medical students; more fundamentals that stood him in good stead his entire career.

Read more at: Facts about Harry Anderson: Biography from the Archives of askART