A REFINING PALETTE:
Children’s Book Illustration
in Poland, 1960s-1970s
Beth Holmgren
Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies
Duke University
THURSDAY, Feb. 20, 2014, 5 PM
MONROE 122
Polish posters took the art world by storm in the 1960s and 1970s, but relatively few non-Poles realize
that these decades also marked a golden age in Polish book illustration. Prewar masters and postwar
iconoclasts treated Polish children to a parade of sophisticated, vibrant, and often grotesque images in
their picture books. This lecture/show demonstrates how Polish illustrators conditioned children to
envision more playful worlds than the drab one in which they lived, connecting them early on with the
fantastic, the theatrical, and the absurd. Specific illustrators highlighted include Janusz Stanny, Olga
Siemaszko, and Bohdan Butenko.
Polish Lecture Series: Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies