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.

Being Polish under the Germans, Jan was not allowed to attend school. So his mother taught him to read and write and his father encouraged him to draw, while a next-door neighbour would read him fairy tales, “always stopping at a cliffhanger” to get him to drink his boiled milk. 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. a b (Greenaway Winner 1979). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 15 July 2012.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] Jan Pienkowski". Broadcast episode notes (recording not available). Private Passions, Sunday 14 December 2008, 12:00 (one hour). BBC Radio3. Retrieved 1 December 2012. Jan Michał Pieńkowski (8 August 1936 – 19 February 2022) was a Polish-born British author of children's books—as illustrator, as writer, and as designer of movable books. He is best known for illustrating the Meg and Mog picture book series. [1] He also designed for the theatre. For his contribution as a children's illustrator he was UK nominee in 1982 and again in 2008 for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. [2] [3] Original artwork, drawings, paintings, silhouettes, ceramics and signed books for sale from Jan Pienkowski and David Walser. 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 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. For some years Pienkowski worked as a freelance designer and illustrator for advertising companies and publishers, designing wallpaper for Coloroll and doing graphics for the BBC children’s TV series Watch! 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. He began making silhouettes almost by chance. Early in his career he had done a sample drawing to show a publisher, but, unhappy with the faces, he inked them in, and the drawing was accepted.

In October 2009, Pieńkowski was a guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. During the programme he discussed his childhood spent roaming Europe, his dead infant sister, his bipolarity and his collection of discarded garments (which he would wear himself or give away to charity shops). [6] 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. 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.” 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.