Oliver Jeffers

 b. 1977 in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Oliver Jeffers is a visual artist and author working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture. Curiosity and humor are underlying themes throughout Oliver's practice as an artist and storyteller. While investigating the ways the human mind understands its world, his work also functions as comic relief in the face of futility. Jeffers’ engagements and practice are truly international in scope. His critically acclaimed picture books have been translated into over fifty languages and sold over 14 million copies worldwide. His original artwork has been exhibited at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, the National Portrait Gallery in London, and the Palais Auersperg in Vienna. Jeffers has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award, Bologna Rigazzi Award, An Irish Book Award,  and a United Kingdom Literary Association Award. His eighteenth book as author and illustrator will be released in October 2020, and he has illustrated several others. Oliver grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland; he currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

His Seder Plate for Hayom: 

This Irish Seder Plate is as an homage to a night celebrating freedom as much as a commentary on how religion sometimes sadly divides countries. For the 'night of questions' best selling artist Oliver Jeffers chose to center his plate on a funny question which is a reference to a famous Irish joke:  A tourist visits Northern Ireland and is walking in a no man's land between Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods when he is about to be robbed by a guy who asks him: "Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?" The tourist answers: "I'm a Jew." And the man asks him: "Well, are you a Protestant Jew or a Catholic Jew?"