*Ivanoski Elisabeth
(Chisinau (MO), 25/07/1910 - 11/04/2006)
Elisavieta Andréïevna Ivanovskaia changed her name to Elisabeth Ivanovsky1 when she emigrated to the West - to Brussels - in October 1932, to enrol at the Institut Supérieur d'Architecture et de Décoration (La Cambre). She was Romanian2 at the time. She graduated in June 1934 from the printing arts and book illustration course taught by Joris Minne. Two members of the examination panel were to have a decisive influence on her career as an illustrator: the Antwerp publisher De Sikkel asked her to illustrate Lode Baekelmans, a well-known Flemish writer, while Franz Hellens asked her to illustrate one of his novels.
Élisabeth Ivanovsky illustrated La Mort dans l'Âme by Hellens in 1934. Grands et Petits and Deux Contes russes were written in the summer by Franz Hellens' thirteen-year-old adopted son Alexandre Van Ermengem. They were published in the autumn by Éditions Desclée de Brouwer. In 1935, Élisabeth Ivanovsky graduated from the set and costume design course run by the playwright Herman Teirlinck. Teirlinck invited her to design the costumes for his play Elkerlijk, which was performed before Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
Between 1934 and 1937 Hellens sent Ivanovsky thirty-one letters, cards and notes (kept at the Bibliothèque royale, Brussels). In 1936 she illustrated the children's version of "Bass Bassina Boulou" and the Minutes insolites by Brussels surrealist Marcel Lecomte. Her theatre sets won a Gold Medal at the 6th Milan Biennale in 1937. That year, she annotated with a hundred or so gouaches the manuscripts of dreams and short stories that Hellens sent her from day to day: Nocturnales (two dreams), Fantômes (two short stories). In 1940, she illustrated each of the fifty copies of Invocation with a gouache, a poem dedicated to the memory of Frédéric Van Ermengem who had died in combat. She later illustrated Hellens's Fable du Maigre et de la Grosse with three pen-and-ink drawings in La Gazette des lettres (Paris) no. 26 of 15 November 1952. Élisabeth Ivanovsky last met Franz Hellens at the Librairie Jacques Antoine (Brussels) in 1971.
In 1938, Zinaïda Schakhowskoy introduced him to René Meurant, a poet looking for an engraved portrait for one of his collections.
Meurant introduced her to his friends at the Journal des Poètes, Armand Bernier and Géo Libbrecht in particular.She illustrated the Flemish writer Stijn Streuvels, the Walloon patois fabulist Henri Pétrez and the Ardennes novelist Arsène Soreil.She created the Pomme d'api collection at George Houyoux's Éditions des Artistes, twenty-four very small format books published in four series from 1942 to 1946, with texts by René Meurant.
She married René Meurant in 1944 and became a Belgian.She gave birth to a daughter, Anne Meurant (1944, future musicologist), and two sons, Serge Meurant (1946, future poet) and Georges Meurant (1948, future painter and essayist).
From 1941 to 1946 she shared a creative period with René Meurant.In 1940 he wrote L'Art de servir un texte - Élisabeth Ivanovsky imagière de talent (Bruxelles: Savoir et Beauté no 4, p. 6-7), and in 1941 an introduction to "Chansons Populaires des Provinces Belges".
From 1942 to 1945, Éditions des Artistes (Brussels) published the 24 booklets of the "Collection Pomme d'Api" created by Ivanovsky, for which Meurant wrote the texts. In 1943 she illustrated his quatrains from Bestiaire des Songes, and in 1944 he wrote the text for Petite Miche for the same publisher. In 1945 he transcribed Quatre perles du Trésor des Frères Grimm, which she illustrated (Diest: Pro Arte). Cuchette and Porcinet were also published by Éditions des Artistes in 1946.
Élisabeth Ivanovsky went on to illustrate mainly for young people, notably for Éditions Desclée de Brouwer, Casterman and Gautier-Languereau, often in collaboration with Marcelle Vérité.His original editions have been published in five countries in seven languages: German, French, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Walloon.
Modified editions, co-editions or re-editions have been published in twenty-five countries in twenty-two languages:Afrikaans, English, German, Chinese, Danish, Spanish, French, Greek, Gaelic, Hungarian, Indonesian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Turkish, Walloon3, from the literacy and reading instruction manuals published by the Romanian State in 1930 to the Fables of Baron d'Fleuru, in Charleroi, in Walloon dialect in 1999.
There were hardly any more books by Élisabeth Ivanovsky in bookshops when Éditions MeMo reissued the Pomme d'Api Collection under the title Les très petits d'Élisabeth Ivanovsky in 2007, followed by CIRKUS in 2010 and the four titles in the Sans-Souci Collection in 2016, which were also published in Japan and China.
Élisabeth Ivanovsky illustrated La Mort dans l'Âme by Hellens in 1934. Grands et Petits and Deux Contes russes were written in the summer by Franz Hellens' thirteen-year-old adopted son Alexandre Van Ermengem. They were published in the autumn by Éditions Desclée de Brouwer. In 1935, Élisabeth Ivanovsky graduated from the set and costume design course run by the playwright Herman Teirlinck. Teirlinck invited her to design the costumes for his play Elkerlijk, which was performed before Queen Elisabeth of Belgium.
Between 1934 and 1937 Hellens sent Ivanovsky thirty-one letters, cards and notes (kept at the Bibliothèque royale, Brussels). In 1936 she illustrated the children's version of "Bass Bassina Boulou" and the Minutes insolites by Brussels surrealist Marcel Lecomte. Her theatre sets won a Gold Medal at the 6th Milan Biennale in 1937. That year, she annotated with a hundred or so gouaches the manuscripts of dreams and short stories that Hellens sent her from day to day: Nocturnales (two dreams), Fantômes (two short stories). In 1940, she illustrated each of the fifty copies of Invocation with a gouache, a poem dedicated to the memory of Frédéric Van Ermengem who had died in combat. She later illustrated Hellens's Fable du Maigre et de la Grosse with three pen-and-ink drawings in La Gazette des lettres (Paris) no. 26 of 15 November 1952. Élisabeth Ivanovsky last met Franz Hellens at the Librairie Jacques Antoine (Brussels) in 1971.
In 1938, Zinaïda Schakhowskoy introduced him to René Meurant, a poet looking for an engraved portrait for one of his collections.
Meurant introduced her to his friends at the Journal des Poètes, Armand Bernier and Géo Libbrecht in particular.She illustrated the Flemish writer Stijn Streuvels, the Walloon patois fabulist Henri Pétrez and the Ardennes novelist Arsène Soreil.She created the Pomme d'api collection at George Houyoux's Éditions des Artistes, twenty-four very small format books published in four series from 1942 to 1946, with texts by René Meurant.
She married René Meurant in 1944 and became a Belgian.She gave birth to a daughter, Anne Meurant (1944, future musicologist), and two sons, Serge Meurant (1946, future poet) and Georges Meurant (1948, future painter and essayist).
From 1941 to 1946 she shared a creative period with René Meurant.In 1940 he wrote L'Art de servir un texte - Élisabeth Ivanovsky imagière de talent (Bruxelles: Savoir et Beauté no 4, p. 6-7), and in 1941 an introduction to "Chansons Populaires des Provinces Belges".
From 1942 to 1945, Éditions des Artistes (Brussels) published the 24 booklets of the "Collection Pomme d'Api" created by Ivanovsky, for which Meurant wrote the texts. In 1943 she illustrated his quatrains from Bestiaire des Songes, and in 1944 he wrote the text for Petite Miche for the same publisher. In 1945 he transcribed Quatre perles du Trésor des Frères Grimm, which she illustrated (Diest: Pro Arte). Cuchette and Porcinet were also published by Éditions des Artistes in 1946.
Élisabeth Ivanovsky went on to illustrate mainly for young people, notably for Éditions Desclée de Brouwer, Casterman and Gautier-Languereau, often in collaboration with Marcelle Vérité.His original editions have been published in five countries in seven languages: German, French, Dutch, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Walloon.
Modified editions, co-editions or re-editions have been published in twenty-five countries in twenty-two languages:Afrikaans, English, German, Chinese, Danish, Spanish, French, Greek, Gaelic, Hungarian, Indonesian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Turkish, Walloon3, from the literacy and reading instruction manuals published by the Romanian State in 1930 to the Fables of Baron d'Fleuru, in Charleroi, in Walloon dialect in 1999.
There were hardly any more books by Élisabeth Ivanovsky in bookshops when Éditions MeMo reissued the Pomme d'Api Collection under the title Les très petits d'Élisabeth Ivanovsky in 2007, followed by CIRKUS in 2010 and the four titles in the Sans-Souci Collection in 2016, which were also published in Japan and China.