Swiatkowska, Gabi 1971(?)-

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Swiatkowska, Gabi 1971(?)-

Personal

Surname pronounced "Svee-at-KOVE-ska"; born c. 1971, in Cracow, Poland; immigrated to United States, 1988; daughter of Michal and Lidia Swiatkowska; children: Zak (daughter). Education: Attended Lyceum of Art (Bielsko, Poland); Cooper Union, degree; studied at Parson's School of Design.

Addresses

Home—Pszczyna, Poland. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator and painter. Exhibitions: Paintings have been exhibited in galleries in the United States and Europe.

Awards, Honors

Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award, 2004.

Illustrator

FOR CHILDREN

Sally Derby, Hannah's Bookmobile Christmas, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2001.

Helen Recorvits, My Name Is Yoon, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2003.

Lola M. Schaefer, Arrowhawk, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2004.

Nina Payne, Summertime Waltz, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2005.

Kimberly Willis Holt, Waiting for Gregory, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 2006.

Helen Recorvits, Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2006.

Ilene Cooper, The Golden Rule, Harry Abrams (New York, NY), 2007.

Helen Recorvits, Yoon and the Jade Bracelet, Farrar, Straus & Giroux (New York, NY), 2008.

Sidelights

Illustrator Gabi Swiatkowska moved to the United States in 1988, joining her parents who had arrived eight years earlier, and attended art school in New York City as well as in her native Poland. Although her ability to create interesting characters had prompted many of her friends to suggest a career as a children's book illustrator, Swiatkowska did not immediately pursue this option, preferring to focus on her painting. In 2000 she finally put together a portfolio that attracted interest from the first publisher she submitted it to. In addition to the steady stream of illustration assignments she has received since, Swiatkowska has also been awarded the prestigious Ezra Jack Keats Award for New Illustrator, given to her in 2004.

Swiatkowska's first illustration project, creating artwork for Sally Derby's Hannah's Bookmobile Christmas, was praised by Gillian Engberg, who noted in her Booklist review that the illustrator's "beautiful, atmospheric paintings with spot-on details" help give Derby's holiday story about a woman who runs a rural school-bus library a "subdued, unusual" feel. Praising Swiatkowska's contributions to Kimberly Willis Holt's Waiting for Gregory, a Publishers Weekly contributor cited in particular the illustrator's sophisticated and well-schooled approach. "In her artwork, Swiatkowska … elegantly muses on the elasticity of time and the mystery of gestation," the critic noted. "She unmoors her characters from geography and gravity; they float in austere, brush-stroked spaces." The poetic text of Nina Payne's Summertime Waltz "launches" Swiatkowska on a "flight of fancy," added another Publishers Weekly reviewer; despite alternating between pen-and-ink drawings and acrylics applied in "thickly layered brush-

strokes," the artist establishes continuity in the whole through her focus on "the recurring details of the characters' clothing and activities." In her profile on the illustrator for School Library Journal, Andrea Glick wrote that "Swiatkowska brings to Payne's poem about childhood summers a virtuoso drawing and painting technique, coupled with a gleefully unorthodox use of space and a gift for creating funny, surreal imagery. All in all, it's a strikingly innovative work."

Swiatkowska has collaborated with author Helen Recorvits on several books that feature a young Korean girl named Yoon, whose family has moved to the United States. Introduced in My Name Is Yoon, the young immigrant and her adventures are also detailed in Yoon and the Christmas Mitten and Yoon and the Jade Bracelet. While noting that Yoon and the Christmas Mitten is "a sweet and subtle holiday story" that finds the girl learning about the traditions surrounding the Christmas season in her adopted country, Gregory Cowles had special praise for Swiatkowska's contribution to Yoon's adventures. Within "rich, textured illustrations" that are "impressionistic and drenched in color," Cowles noted in his New York Times Book Revew appraisal, Swiatkowska embeds "a wealth of art history"; for example, the heroine's visions of Santa's home at the North Pole are portrayed "like something from the Byzantine Empire, while [Yoon's] … teacher resembles a Raphael Madonna and her classroom might have been decorated by [nineteenth-century Pre-Raphaelite painter] William Morris." Appraising the illustrator's work for My Name Is Yoon, Teri Markson and Stephen Samuel Wise concluded in School Library Journal that "Swiatkowska's stunningly spare, almost surrealistic paintings enhance the … message" underlying Rocorvits' "powerful and inspiring" story.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 15, 2001, Gillian Engberg, review of Hannah's Bookmobile Christmas, p. 234; March 1, 2003, Hazel Rochman, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 1333; May 15, 2004, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Arrowhawk, p. 1626; May 15, 2005, Gillian Engberg, review of Summertime Waltz, p. 1652; December 1, 2006, Gillian Engberg, review of Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, p. 55.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, April, 2003, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 328; July-August, 2004, Timnah Card, review of Arrowhawk, p. 482; February 1, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of Waiting for Gregory, p. 55; November, 2006, Elizabeth Bush, review of Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, p. 142.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2003, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 396; May 1, 2004, Lola M. Schaefer, Arrowhawk, p. 448; April 15, 2005, review of Summertime Waltz, p. 479; April 1, 2006, review of Waiting for Gregory, p. 348; November 1, 2006, review of Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, p. 1133.

New York Times Book Review, Gregory Cowles, review of Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, p. 66.

Publishers Weekly, September 24, 2001, review of Hannah's Bookmobile Christmas, p. 50; January 20, 2003, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 81; November 10, 2003, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 36; May 16, 2005, review of Summertime Waltz, p. 62; April 24, 2006, review of Waiting for Gregory, p. 59.

School Library Journal, October, 2001, review of Hannah's Bookmobile Christmas, p. 64; May, 2003, Teri Markson and Stephen Samuel Wise, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 128; December, 2003, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 48; May, 2004, Susan Oliver, review of Arrowhawk, p. 122; July, 2004, Lisa G. Kropp, review of My Name Is Yoon, p. 44; July, 2005, Genevieve Gallagher, review of Summertime Waltz, p. 80; November, 2005, Andrea Glick, "Gabi's World," p. 46; March, 2006, Marianne Saccardi, review of Waiting for Gregory, p. 194; October, 2006, Eva Mitnick, review of Yoon and the Christmas Mitten, p. 100.