Wanda Gág Day!

Celebrating the 131st anniversary of the birth of Wanda Gág in New Ulm, Minnesota, a pioneering artist, author, illustrator and translator:

Wanda’s classic children’s book Millions of Cats is now in public domain:

This means we’ll probably be inundated with products; what lies beyond that remains to be seen. Wanda’s estate has never been too aggressive in promoting her artwork, perhaps that’s for the better but any faithful reproductions are, in my opinion, welcome.

Conversely, the potential for abuse will be greater. There was already a drag queen using her moniker, here is another example from egregious plagiarist internet celebrity Cory Doctorow which he said was his most popular post of 2023:

The background image is from Wanda’s 1936 Tales from Grimm and most decidedly not in the public domain. While Doctorow laments the downward spiral of social media he is guilty of the same “enshittification” on Wanda’s sublime work.

Escaping from all this legalese: a link to an interesting 1993 radio show about Wanda and her life, work and times.

Here is a related documentary on Wanda and her siblings that includes several new photos of Wanda (including top image above) with a special emphasis placed on her sister Flavia:



And, finally, a drawing by Wanda of one of her sisters (thanks Bosco!) It was done on the obverse of one of her homework assignments, homework that was referenced in her autobiography, Growing Pains (pp. 60-61):

Much more on Wanda…