Tibor Gergely (August 3, 1900 – January 13, 1978) was a Hungarian-American artist best known for his illustration of popular children's

picture books A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The ima ...

. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the

1928 Summer Olympics The 1928 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the IX Olympiad (), was an international multi-sport event that was celebrated from 28 July to 12 August 1928 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The city of Amsterdam had previously bid for ...

Biography

Born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

in 1900, into a middle-class Jewish family, he studied art briefly in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

before immigrating to the United States in 1939, where he settled in New York City. Largely a self-taught artist, he also contributed several covers of ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', mostly during the 1940s. Among the most popular children's books Gergely illustrated are ''The Happy Man and His Dump Truck'', ''Busy Day Busy People'', ''The Magic Bus (by Maurice Doblier)'', '' The Little Red Caboose'', ''The Fire Engine Book'', '' Tootle'', ''Five Little Firemen'', ''Five Hundred Animals from A to Z'', and '' Scuffy the Tugboat''. Many of his better known books were published by Little Golden Books. His best work is collected in "The Great Big Book of Bedtime Stories". He became a U.S. citizen in 1948. Gergely died in 1978, in New York. As of 2001, ''Tootle'' was the all-time third best-selling hardcover children's book in English, and ''Scuffy the Tugboat'' was the eighth all-time bestseller.

References

External links

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Tibor Gergely
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gergely, Tibor 1900 births 1978 deaths American children's book illustrators Hungarian children's book illustrators American magazine illustrators Hungarian magazine illustrators 20th-century Hungarian illustrators 20th-century American illustrators Hungarian emigrants to the United States Little Golden Books Art competitors at the 1928 Summer Olympics Jewish American illustrators 20th-century American Jews