Zosia Dzierżawska

(b. 1983) – an illustrator and author of comic books and children’s books.

She graduated in comparative studies from the University of Warsaw, and studied drawing in Milan. She creates illustrations for young children as well as subtle, meditative pieces for adults.

She is the author of “A testa in giù” (Upside down), a graphic novel that describes to the young Italian readers the events and atmosphere of the 1980s in Poland. In it, the author tells the story of growing up in Communist Warsaw, the bread lines, protests, the Solidarity movement – of the greyness and of the things that managed to momentarily dispel it.

2019 saw the publication of “Eileen Gray. Dom pod słońcem” (Eileen Gray. A House Under the Sun), a graphic novel co-created by Dzierżawska and Charlotte Malterre-Barthes. It is an extraordinary account of the life of French architect Eileen Gray – a forgotten visionary and pioneer of modernism whose artistic genius matched her uncompromising nature.

In the years 2014 and 2017 Dzierżawska was awarded an honorary mention during the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. She was twice awarded a distinction by the Society of Illustrators in New York (2014 and 2020). In 2015, Agnieszka Horubała’s book with Dzierżawska’s illustrations, “Sto nóg stonogi Fruzi” (Centipede Fruzia and her Hundred Legs) was named the best children’s book at the Children’s Literature Festival.

In 2020, Dzierżawska received an honorary mention at the Sydney Taylor Book Award for her illustrations for the book Doctor Esperanto and the Language of Hope by Mary Rockliff. She was also nominated for the “Przecinek i Kropka” Prize (2020) and the Ha-Gi Prize (2024) given to Polish female illustrators and visual artists.

She collaborated with magazines such as “The New York Times”, “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”, “The Architectural Review”, “Pismo”, “Książki”, “Gazeta Wyborcza” and publishing houses such as Oxford University Press, Nobrow Press, Candlewick Press, Bayard Éditions, Harper Collins, Bajka or Dwie Siostry. She worked on illustrations for books by authors including Marcin Wicha, Agnieszka Drotkiewicz and Ida Linde.

Her works were exhibited in Milan, Bologna, Tokyo, New York, Berlin, Rome, Hamburg, Zurich, St Petersburg, Geneva and many other places worldwide.

She is a co-founding member of “Armadillo”, a Milan-based illustration studio.

More information about Zosia Dzierżawska’s work can be found here.