Jean Myrthil Nathan Reschofsky was possibly the most prolific illustrator of French children’s books in the twentieth century – between 1949 and 1980 he produced illustrations, mostly for the publisher Hachette, often at the prodigious rate of a title every month, and by the time he retired he had illustrated more than two hundred titles.

Reschofsky originally planned to be an architect, studying architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris, then graduating in architecture and sculpture from the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Having worked mostly as a painter, he found his niche in graphic design in the mid-1940s, producing posters and advertisements, and producing his first book illustrations – in 1944 illustrating Claude Roy’s Les yeux ouverts dans Paris insurgé (With Open Eyes in Resurgent Paris) for Julliard, and the following year Georges Simenon’s Je me souviens (I Remember) for Les Presses de la Cité.

His first Hachette commission came in 1949, for Joseph Kessel’s Fortune carrée (translated into English as Crossroads), and from then on Hachette commissions kept him busy for most of his working life, with just the occasional foray into painting.