Domanska, Janina

Janina Domanska was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1913 (?) and received a diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw in 1939. She taught art in Italy from 1946-1951, and came to the United States in 1952. She worked as a textile designer for several years in New York City, and began illustrating children's books in the 1960s. Her illustrations are noted for their often abstract and geometric style as well as her use of color. Her works are done in various media including watercolor, pencil, pen and ink, and woodcuts. She has illustrated many of her own adaptations and translations of Polish and other folktales, as well as the works of other authors, with some of these stories illustrated in folk or traditional styles. In 1972 she received a Caldecott Honor Book citation for If All the Seas Were One Sea . She died in 1995.

Biographical Sources: Something About the Author vol. 6, 68, 84; Children's Literature Review vol. 40; Something About the Author Autobiography Series vol. 18

From the guide to the Janina Domanska Papers, 1962-1978, (University of Minnesota Libraries Children's Literature Research Collections [clrc])