CAPTAINS OF ILLUSTRATION 100 Years of Children’s Books from Poland

CAPTAINS OF ILLUSTRATION 100 Years of Children’s Books from Poland is an A-Z anthology dedicated to the legacies of illustrators whose careers spanned the century between the nation’s regaining of its independence in 1918 up through 2018. Given that this timeframe essentially covers the breadth of the modern history of Polish illustration for children, it would have been an impossible challenge to take a detailed and systematic look at each aspect of the artists’ collective oeuvre in a single publication.
A team of eleven experts in the field of illustration – historians, researchers, artists – came together to flesh out each theme and share the most interesting highlights and anecdotes of the period through the works of Polish illustrators. All 100 keywords have been arranged alphabetically, covering an omnifarious array of aspects related to illustration, particullary the subjects and stories that artists brought to life, yet also the methods and techniques they employed, along with the trends and stylistic inspirations that motivated them.
The starting point and the essence which lies at the heart of the anthology was, of course, the illustrations. Each author chose between several to over a dozen illustrations to accompany each alphabetical entry. Ultimately, there are over 900 works by 230 illustrators featured in the book, composing a rich visual panorama of Polish illustration through the years.