Jan Pieńkowski, the beloved illustrator and author of more than 140 children’s books, has died aged 85.
Pieńkowski, whose work included the Meg and Mog pop-up books, had been living with Alzheimer’s.
Francesca Dow, the managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s Books, confirmed that he died on Saturday morning.
Pieńkowski’s work was often inspired by his Polish childhood and experiences as a wartime refugee. His interest in paper cut-outs stemmed from his time in an air raid shelter in Warsaw, where a soldier had kept him amused by cutting newspapers into shapes for him.
Meg and Mog, completed in collaboration with the late writer Helen Nicoll, was a series of illustrated adventures about a hapless witch and her stripy cat.
Pieńkowski said in an interview that the series gave him the opportunity to turn monsters from his childhood into harmless toys. He took his palette from comic strips such as Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace.
“Jan was one of the great storytellers: an exceptionally talented creator, who was led by what interested him, and who treated…
