Ilon Wikland

About Ilon Wikland

Ilon Wikland (born 5 February 1930) is an Estonian-born Swedish illustrator who has illustrated more of Astrid Lindgren's books than any other artist, including The Brothers Lionheart, Karlsson-on-the-Roof, Ronia the Robber's Daughter and the Bullerby (Noisy Village) stories.

She was born Maire-Ilon Pääbo in Tartu and, after her parents divorced in 1939, grew up with her grandparents in Haapsalu on the Baltic coast. In the autumn of 1944, aged fourteen, she fled the advancing Soviet army by boat to Sweden with a schoolfriend's family. In 1953 she applied for illustration work at the Stockholm publisher Rabén & Sjögren, where she met Lindgren, beginning a partnership that lasted decades. Her Lindgren titles also include Mio, My Son, and she has illustrated picture books by other writers, among them a Swedish edition of The Borrowers. Sweden awarded her the Illis quorum medal in 2002, and Estonia has given her the Order of the White Star, Third Class. She holds both Estonian and Swedish citizenship.

For collectors

Her Lindgren pictures appear in the Swedish editions published by Rabén & Sjögren. The Bullerby books were also illustrated by Ingrid Vang Nyman, and the first of them came out in 1947, before Wikland joined the publisher, so check the artist credit. In 2004 she gave her original illustrations to Estonia, and they are shown at Ilon's Wonderland, a gallery and family centre opened in Haapsalu in 2009.