Ingrid Vang Nyman (1916-1959). ”Every author who has been fortunate enough to find a congenial illustrator for their book, would be eternally grateful to that artist”, said Astrid Lindgren. Ingrid Vang Nyman’s pictures of Pippi Longstocking have become classics and have been enjoyed in many countries. Ingrid Vang was born in 1916 in Vejen in southern Jylland, in Denmark. As a nineteen year-old she began studying at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, but she did not enjoy being there, so she left her studies after a couple of years. In 1942 she moved to Stockholm. She took her work as an illustrator very seriously, worked very fast and had a high level of ambition. She demanded that illustrations for children should be of the same high artistic quality as for adults. Her somewhat unrealistically high financial demands caused friction between her and the publisher at times. The years between 1945 and 1952 were a time of almost manic activity, and just about all of her most important illustrations were created during that period. The artistic awareness in her illustrations is tremendous, as is the technical precision. She used distinctive colour fields, carefully chosen nuances, distinct ink contours and a few impacting details to set the scene and create atmosphere. She was conversant with the latest printing techniques and took advantage of them by separating the colours herself to achieve the desired result. The books by Astrid Lindgren which Ingrid Vang Nyman has illustrated are the textbook Kajsa Kavat, the textbooks about the Bullerby children and all the books about Pippi Longstocking.