Join us for an evening with Anita Kunz, in partnership with Mechanics’ Hall and Illustration Institute, for a book reveal of her upcoming work, Original Sisters: Portraits of Tenacity and Courage. This event will take place in person at Mechanics’ Hall. This event is free and open to the public; pre-registration is required. Get your tickets through Eventbrite.

A stunning collection of 154 portraits of ground-breaking women throughout history—many of whom have been forgotten—by one of the best illustrators working today

Original Sisters was born from the COVID-19 quarantine. In early March 2020, locked down in her home-studio in Toronto and longing for inspiration, artist Anita Kunz started researching women on the Internet. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she soon found an array of astonishing people who had done amazing things—some of whom she had heard of, but most of whom she had not. And then she began to paint their pictures and write down their stories. The result is a jaw-dropping feat of historic and artistic research. The wide variety of lives, occupations, time periods, and achievements is absolutely mind-bending.

From Joan of Arc to Josephine Baker, from Hippolyta to Greta Thunberg, from Anne Frank to Misty Copeland: these women made and changed history. But there are just as many whom you’ve never heard of, who were never recognized in their lifetimes, whose achievements need to be brought to light. They include the anti-Nazi activist Sophie Scholl, who was executed at age twenty-one by the Third Reich, and Alice Ball, a young African American scientist who discovered a treatment for leprosy but died tragically before she could receive credit for it. As acclaimed journalist Roxane Gay notes in her foreword: “This book, as a whole, offers the reader possibility and promise . . . You will be introduced to many of these women for the first time, because history is rarely kind to women until it is forced to be. You will learn about artists and activists, rulers and rebels.”

This is not only a breathtaking art book. Original Sisters also recounts a secret history that must be told so that it is a secret no more.

ANITA KUNZ is an artist and illustrator living in Toronto. Her art has been published widely and shown in galleries and museums all over the world. She has also been featured regularly in Time, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, The Atlantic, and The New York Times Magazine, and she has done work for Sony Music. Kunz has also illustrated more than fifty book covers. From 1988 to 1990 she was one of two artists chosen by Rolling Stone to produce a monthly illustrated history of rock ’n’ roll endpaper. In 2017, she was inducted into the Society of Illustrators’ Museum of American Illustration Hall of Fame.

Illustration Institute‘s mission is to raise appreciation and awareness of illustration in its many forms. ii seeks to provide people of all ages the opportunity to learn directly from master artists and working professionals through exhibitions and workshops provided at public libraries, museums, schools, and other community venues.

Membership with Mechanics’ Hall is free for students and starts at just $50 a year for individual memberships, which includes use of the library, free and discounted access to programs, and much more. Consider becoming a member today and helping to support programs like this.