Collage of Customs
Mark Podwal was initially best known for his drawings on The New York Times Op-Ed page. He went on to write and illustrate numerous books; he has illustrated more than two dozen works by such authors as Elie Wiesel, Heinrich Heine, Harold Bloom, and Francine Prose. His art is represented in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Prague's National Gallery, the Bodleian Library, and Jewish museums in Berlin, Vienna, Prague and New York. Honours he has received include being named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture; the Jewish Cultural Achievement Award from the Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Gratias Agit Prize from the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Podwal’s current projects include a poster for each new Metropolitan Opera season, a series on Mozart and Prague, a series Kaddish for Dąbrowa Białostocka about the Polish shtetl where his mother was born, and illustrations for Heinrich Heine's poems, Hebrew Melodies.