Haunted House

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D. Martin, "Jan Pienkowski", in Douglas Martin, The Telling Line: Essays On Fifteen Contemporary Book Illustrators (Julia MacRae Books, 1989), pp.187–201 Pieńkowski has had a life-long interest in stage design. He was commissioned to provide designs for Theatre de Complicite, Beauty and the Beast for the Royal Ballet, and Sleeping Beauty at Disneyland Paris. 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 was also twice the UK nominee – in 1982 and 2008 – for the international Hans Christian Andersen award, the highest recognition available to creators of children’s books. Pienkowski’s family fled when the Russians came, and after working their way across Europe they arrived in England in 1946, eventually settling in Herefordshire. Jan attended the Cardinal Vaughan School in London and, despite knowing no English when he arrived in the country, later read English and Classics at King’s College, Cambridge.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.

Although he was studying literature, even then Pieńkowski was busy illustrating for Granta magazine and designing posters for university theatre productions – in the process developing a lifelong interest in stage design. Before Cambridge, Pieńkowski had spent a couple of months in Rome, one of his favourite cities, where he discovered opera. This love of the arts was a constant in his life. Styles, Morag (20 February 2022). "Jan Pieńkowski obituary". The Guardian . Retrieved 21 February 2022. 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. 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]After leaving university Pieńkowski founded the Gallery Five greeting cards company. He began illustrating children's bo 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. 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 had a lifelong interest in stage design. He was commissioned to provide designs for Théâtre de Complicité, Beauty and the Beast for the Royal Ballet, and Sleeping Beauty at Disneyland Paris. 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.

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 At the age of 10, he could not speak any English. However, a year later he passed his Eleven-Plus exam and attended the Cardinal Vaughan School in London and later read English Classics at King's College, Cambridge. [1] It was here that he met his friend, and later agent, Angela Holder, who persuaded him to turn one of his poster designs into a greetings card. [1] 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.After Nicoll died in 2012, Pieńkowski worked on new Meg and Mog titles with his civil partner, David Walser, a translator, artist, musician and writer. In 2005 Pienkowski contracted a civil partnership with David Walser, with whom he has been in a relationship for over forty years. The children’s author and illustrator Shoo Rayner added: “Sad news – Jan Pieńkowski was an inspiration to me when I was starting out.”

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. Meg and Mog, completed in collaboration with the late writer Helen Nicoll, was a series of illustrated adventures about a hapless witch and her stripy cat. 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. He added: “Full of love, curiosity, art, thought, enjoyment and laughter. He will be much missed, as a man, and as a towering figure in children’s books.” Pieńkowski said in an interview that the series gave him the opportunity to turn monsters from his childhood into harmless toys. He took his palette from comic strips such as Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace.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. 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. During the German occupation his grandmother was arrested for hiding a young British pilot and a Jewish colleague in her Warsaw apartment; she and her daughter, Jan’s aunt Zozia, were sent to Auschwitz, where they died of typhoid.