Peter Sís | |
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Born | Petr Sís May 11, 1949 (age 67) Brno, Czechoslovakia |
Occupation | Illustrator, cartoonist |
Citizenship | United States (1988) |
Genre | Children's picture books, editorial cartoons |
Spouse | Terry Lajtha |
Children | Madeleine, Matej |
Website | |
petersis |
Peter Sís (born May 11, 1949) is a Czech-born American illustrator and writer of children's books. As a cartoonist his editorial illustrations have appeared in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, and The Atlantic Monthly. For his "lasting contribution" as a children's illustrator he received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 2012.
Peter Sís was born in Brno, Czechoslovakia in 1949. His father was a filmmaker and his mother was an artist, and he has a younger sister, Hana. As a teenager, Sís developed an interest in Western culture, Allen Ginsberg’s beat poetry, long hair for men, blue jeans and rock and roll, particularly the music of The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones. Sís was educated at The High School of Applied Arts, the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague and the Royal College of Art in London, where he studied with Quentin Blake. When he graduated, he began a career as a filmmaker, later winning a Golden Bear Award for an animated short, Hlavy, at the 1980 West Berlin Film Festival.
Sís travelled to the United States in 1982 "to create an animated film based on Czechoslovakia's participation in the Olympics" that were upcoming in Los Angeles. The Soviet Union initiated a boycott that included Czechoslovakia but Sís did not return home. He remained in the America and was granted asylum. In the U.S. he began illustrating and writing books. He has occasionally returned to filmmaking, producing commercials for Nickelodeon & PBS Kids, plus shorts for Sesame Street based on his book Madlenka.