The Art Book Every Child Should Own: Katy Hessel and Ping Zhu's The Illustrated Story of Art Without Men
Thinking back to art books that shaped me as a child, I think it was the DK Eyewitness Art Book about Gaughin that stands out. I’d sit and copy Gaughin’s paintings for hours at the breakfast table. Transported to Paris and exotic faraway places.
The DK Art Books from the village library we’re my art history lesson. Looking back…not a single woman artist across the entire DK Eyewitness run! Now to imagine, if even one of those books had been about a woman artist, or women artists, how might it have shaped my perspective. Instead of copying Gaughin, instead learning about Alice Neel or Frida Kahlo.
So, that's the simplest way to describe how important what Katy Hessel and Ping Zhu have made together.
The Illustrated Story of Art Without Men, published by Puffin and aimed at readers aged 8 to 14 takes Katy Hessel's bestselling adult history book and opens it up for a generation of kids that deserve to find themselves in it.
A History That Was Always Missing
Art history, as it's typically taught, has a gap in it. A significant one…until now.
The women who painted, sculpted, quilted, and challenged the world across 500 years, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century are largely absent from standard school syllabuses.
For example, Sofonisba Anguissola, whose glittering Renaissance portraits rivaled any of her male contemporaries or Harriet Powers a freewoman who quilted amazing stories from her faith and community into works of artistic beauty.
Female artists from Cornwall to Japan, Nigeria to Manhattan whose names most children, and probably most adults, have never encountered.
This book changes all that. And it does it in the way that children actually learn. Through story and illustration and the irresistible feeling of a young child discovering something that was perhaps hidden.
Why Illustration Makes the Difference
Ping Zhu's contribution here is central. Her signature gouache-on-paper style is warm and tactile and painted with visible energy that makes these women and stories feel present on the page.
Ping's portrait of Alice Neel makes her vivid in a way that a textbook entry never could. You see a female artist with a point of view. Her art practice alongside her life.
Ping’s visible, imperfect brushstrokes matter for young readers in particular. It signals that art is something made by human hands. For a child, seeing that same looseness and life in the work of a celebrated illustrator is quietly radical. It says: this is how it's done. You can do this too. The same as i did with Gaughins ‘imperfect’ paintings.
A Book That Invites Children to Make Art Too
What sets this apart from a standard illustrated history of art book is how the activities in it pull children in.
Each chapter includes an art task with hands-on prompts that connect the women artists on the page to the child reading the book.
How cool to make a wish tree in the manner of Yoko Ono or turn your favourite singer into a pop art portrait. The history is just a starting point.
So, for parents looking for a book that does more than sit on a shelf gathering dust, this is it. Instead its a book thats used, probably will get paint splats, little handmarks and messed up. An artwork in istelf!
Art Book Every Child Should Own
If giving it as a gift, its the kind of thing that might quietly redirect a child's sense of what's possible. Especially for quietly introducing the history of female artists to a new generation of budding creatives.
Finding out that incredible women were also creating world-changing art all along. Overcoming the fact that someone simply forgot to tell you lands differently at ten than it does later in life. That's the feeling this book is engineered to produce.
Enjoy the book. Ping Zhu's illustrations make each woman specific and alive.
Each face and figure and story is rendered with the care of an illustrator who understood exactly what was at stake in getting the story right.
The Illustrated Story of Art Without Men is published by Puffin, March 2026.
It is the art book for the children in your life who have never been told the whole story.
Ping Zhu. Photographed by Daniel Cochran
Ping Zhu is represented by Dutch Uncle, a world-renowned illustration and animation agency with offices in London, New York, and Tokyo.
Ping's work, including her recent high-profile illustrations for "The Illustrated Story of Art Without Men," showcases the signature texture and style that Dutch Uncle is celebrated for representing.
Ping Zhu (Illustrator)
