He also talked about his 40-year relationship with his collaborator and civil partner, David Walser, whom he met in a pub on the King's Road in West London. They contracted their partnership in Richmond on the first day this was possible in 2005. [6]

Rural life on a farm was cut short, however, when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. The family moved to Warsaw, where his mother’s family lived, and his father worked briefly as a bailiff. When Jan was five years old, Jerzy, who had helped organise resistance groups, had to go underground for a year. In 1968, Pieńkowski began working with children's author Joan Aiken. He won the annual Kate Greenaway Medal for their 1971 book, The Kingdom Under the Sea and other stories ( Jonathan Cape), eleven "fairy tales from Eastern Europe and Russia" retold by Aiken. [7] That award by the Library Association recognised the year's best children's book illustration by a British subject. In retrospect the librarians call it "brilliantly illustrated in a highly original and recognisable silhouette style". [7] One year earlier he had been one of three Greenaway runners up for The Golden Bird ( J. M. Dent, 1970), written by Edith Brill. [8] [a] Francesca Dow, the managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s Books, confirmed that he died on Saturday morning.Along with The Great Green Mouse Disaster, this was one of the few books that I would hunt down in my local library as a child. I am sure it is synonymous to almost every child's reading history from the 80s (it was published in 1979) and has, fortunately, recently been reprinted. Pieńkowski illustrated his first book at the age of eight, as a present for his father. During World War II, Pieńkowski's family moved about Europe, finally settling in Herefordshire, England in 1946. He attended the Cardinal Vaughan School in London, and later read English and Classics at King's College, Cambridge. One or two critics questioned the frightening nature of many of his picture books, and he certainly had a tendency towards the macabre and gothic. Another inspiration for Pieńkowski was comics. As he put it, “the violence and hyperbole of the Old Testament stories found an echo in Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace. They also gave me my palette.” He insisted that children like to be frightened in a safe place, although he did admit that some Slavic folk tales are pretty terrifying. Pieńkowski lived and worked in Barnes, London, where he was a patron of the Barnes Literary Society. [13] After leaving university Pieńkowski founded the Gallery Five greeting cards company. He began illustrating children's books in his spare time, but soon found the work taking over all his time. He began working with children's author Joan Aiken in 1968; he later won the first of two Kate Greenaway Medals in 1972 for his illustrations for Aiken's The Kingdom Under the Sea.

There, he designed posters and sets for undergraduate theatre productions and, after graduation, co-founded the successful Gallery Five design company, publishing greetings cards, posters and books.

Paper Cut Story Books

Jan was one of the great storytellers: an exceptionally talented creator, who was led by what interested him, and who treated children as his equals,” Dow said on Sunday. This is it. The Holy grail of spooky picture books to creep out and delight children all over the world. I borrowed this book so many times from the library when I was a child. It was the first time I saw a pop-up book and it’s combination of humor, scares and ingeniously designed pop-up features kept me entertained every time I opened the book. a b c d e "Jan Pienkowski obituary". The Times. 22 February 2022. ISSN 0140-0460 . Retrieved 24 February 2022. For his work as a children’s author, Pieńkowski was awarded the 2019 Booktrust lifetime achievement award, which has in the past gone to some of the greatest names in children’s books, including Shirley Hughes, Raymond Briggs and Judith Kerr. The British author Ed Vere, who is godson to Walser, said: “Jan Pieńkowski lived an inspiring life dedicated to making books of the very highest standard – pioneering, intelligent, beautifully considered, and always created with a mischievous sense of fun.”

The Booker Prize trophy: the story behind our distinctive statuette". The Booker Prizes . Retrieved 6 February 2023. He illustrated for Granta magazine and designed posters for university theatre productions. At the beginning of his career, Pieńkowski was employed to draw live on the BBC children’s programme Watch!, before the book world discovered him. Pieńkowski was born in Warsaw to a country squire father and a scientist mother. He was three when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, forcing the family to move around Europe before they eventually settled in England in 1946. There was an impatience and wonderful curiosity to him, as he looked for new ways to tell stories: drawing on his Polish roots with his cut-out and silhouette work; his extraordinary use of colour; his pioneering interest in drawing on the computer; and of course his award-winning pop-ups which challenged publishers and printers to find new ways to create his books.” After Nicoll died in 2012, he added further Meg and Mog titles with new stories written by his partner, David Walser. Pieńkowski and Walser, a translator, artist, musician and writer, had been together for more than 40 years when they became civil partners in 2005 – as soon as it was possible to do so – settling in Hammersmith, west London. A devout Catholic, Pieńkowski was sorry not to be able to have the union solemnised in church, although his priest said vespers for the couple.He won the Kate Greenaway award in 1971 with the writer Joan Aiken for their second collaboration, The Kingdom Under the Sea, which was comprised of eastern European fairytales. He won his second Greenaway award in 1979 for the scary pop-up book Haunted House, which demonstrated his tendency towards the gothic. Mog, the stripy cat from the Meg and Mog stories. Pieńkowski said that he took his palette from comic strips such as Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace. Photograph: Sarah Lee/the Guardian Until he was eight the family lived in a village in a part of western Poland, annexed by Germany in 1939, where his father had a job as a bailiff on a country estate. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that Jan never treats children as children,” Walser said a few years ago. “It wouldn’t occur to him to talk down to them, he just behaves perfectly normally … When he works with children, he’s one of them.”

Jan Michel Pieńkowski is a Polish-born British illustrator and author of children's books. He is probably best known for his Meg and Mog books with writer Helen Nicoll and for his pop-up books, including Haunted House (winner of the 1980 Kate Greenaway Medal), Robot, Dinner Time, Good Night and seventeen others. animals, including a Gorilla, Tiger and Shark, pop out at you in vibrant colours in that teaches young children about the food chain in this chiling tale. Find out more Pieńkowski is probably best known for illustrating the Meg and Mog books written by Helen Nicoll, and for his pop-up books including Haunted House, Robot, Dinner Time, Good Night and 17 others.In London, he attended the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial school in Holland Park, where he learned Latin and Greek, before going on to King’s College, Cambridge, to study classics and English. After leaving university, together they founded the Gallery Five greeting cards company. [1] He began illustrating children's books in spare time but soon found it taking all his time.