Petra Mathers (née Tollens; March 25, 1945 – February 6, 2024) was a German-born American writer and illustrator of children's picture books.
[2] Petra Mathers was born in Todtmoos, Waldshut in the Black Forest in Germany on March 25, 1945, at the end of the second World War.
Critic H. Nichols B. Clark describes her formal aesthetic, explaining that Mathers "[creates] simplified forms that comprise flat shapes.
She assembles a carefully articulated formal arrangement whose visual dynamics are as integral to the production as the pictorial narrative.
"[4] Linnea Hendricks explains that Mathers' picturebooks "combine a flat, naive, folklike style with wit and a strong sense of design" and are "praised for their freshness, originality, subtlety, and genuine feeling.