Art for Christmas

Something beautiful to look at this season.

I just wanted to share some beautiful art I found buried in the stacks in our city library’s children’s section- Christmas by Jan Pienkowski.

Jan Pienkowski was a Polish/British children’s author and illustrator who survived the Nazi invasion of Poland in the late 1930s. His family fled cross country across Europe as refugees, finally settling in England in 1946. He passed away in 2022.

I found his book illustrating the Christmas story, and I love how he treats it like a fairytale. The people and objects are all depicted in shadowy black silhouette, yet are incredibly detailed.

Please excuse my less than professional level photographs— turns out it’s hard to take pictures of glossy library book pages with an old smart phone.

I think this one is my favorite. I love how Pienkowski worked in both the lily (a traditional part of Annunciation paintings) and an apple tree as a reference to Mary as the new Eve.

King Herod’s Palace

“The wise men went home another way…”