A Polish Children’s Classic Comes Back Into Print—With Enduring Style by Lewitt-Him
Locomotive is a gorgeous children’s book, with mod illustrations and luscious color. An 80-year-old Polish children’s classic, it was reissued by the indie British publisher Thames & Hudson a few months ago. Rendered in rollicking yet sophisticated rhyme—Here is the engine, black, stupendous,/Dripping with oil, its heat tremendous./Eager it waits; and its body glows,/While the bursts of steam that it pants and blows,/Seem proud, impatient.—it is a delight.
The author, Julian Tuwim (from the Hebrew Tovim), survived the Holocaust by fleeing to Brazil. The illustrators, Jan Le Witt (born Abraham Lewitt) and George Him (born Jerzy Himmelfarb), designing under the joint moniker Lewitt-Him, managed to escape to London. Tuwim—who returned to Poland after the war—is today considered one of Poland’s most beloved poets but is virtually unknown outside the country. Lewitt-Him, on the other hand, embraced their new identities as Englishmen. By the time Locomotive came out in Poland in 1938, they’d been in the U.K. for a year, designing high-style propaganda posters, murals, booklets, and stamps for the U.K.’s Ministry of Information, Ministry of Food, and postal service. If you’re in London, you can see their work in the just-opened British Postal Museum, as well as in the National Archives and the Victoria and Albert Museum.