Shimin Shines

A new book, The Art of Symeon Shimin, featuring the paintings, drawings and writings of the late Russian-born Jewish artist, who died in New York in 1984 at the age of 82, has just been published.

The work includes reproductions of more than 70 works, his autobiography Metamorphosis, and essays by Independent writers Charles Donelan and Josef Woodard, edited and curated by his Santa Barbara-based daughter Tonia Shimin.

Shimin, whose work was exhibited at Manhattan’s Whitney Museum, illustrated more than 50 children’s books during his lifetime, starting in 1950. Two that he authored in 1973 and 1974, Gorilla, Gorilla and A New Baby a New Life, won two Christopher Awards.

He also painted large scale posters for Hollywood films, including creating the iconic poster for Gone with the Wind in 1936.

The same year he was awarded a contract by the Public Works Arts Project to paint a mural, Contemporary Justice and The Child, in Washington’s Department of Justice Building, which took four years to complete and can still be seen today.