Istvan Banyai (artist)

Istvan Banyai (born in Budapest, Hungary, February 27, 1949) received his BFA from Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest and gained prominence as a commercial illustrator and animator in the mid-1980s when he emigrated to the United States. In 1995 Banyai produced his first wordless children's book, the masterful "Zoom." Honored as one of the best children's books of the year by the New York Times and Publishers Weekly, "Zoom" was soon published in 18 languages. With increasing complexity and conceptual originality, he went on to author four more books and illustrate many more in collaboration with other writers and poets. "It's refreshing to encounter a group of virtually wordless books that invite children to consider their world from a point of view they may not have otherwise considered. The most stunning is "Zoom," written -- or, rather, imagined and then illustrated -- by Istvan Banyai." [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E4D61439F931A25752C1A963958260]

While he continues to produce commercial illustration for publication such as The New Yorker, Playboy, Rolling Stone, Time and Atlantic Monthly; cover art for Sony and Verve Records; and animated short films for Nickelodeon and MTV Europe, he is internationally respected for his unique philosophical and iconoclastic vision, thus transcending the status of commercial illustrator to gifted artist. Banyai describes his art as "an organic combination of turn-of-the-century Viennese retro, interjected with American pop, some European absurdity added for flavor, served on a cartoon-style color palette... no social realism added."

From Budapest to Paris, Los Angeles to Manhattan ("No illustrator surpasses Istvan Banyai at portraying the dream lives of today's New York and Los Angeles hip urban style-setters.") [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Minus-Equals-Plus/Istvan-Banyai/e/9780810929906] he now lives with his wife in the woods of Connecticut among deer and flowers.

[ GFDL-self-with-disclaimers]

Books

____"Zoom" (New York:Viking, 1995)

____"Re-Zoom" (New York:Penguin Group, 1998)

____"REM: Rapid Eye Movement" (New York:Viking, 1998)

____ Delzell, Tom. "The Slang of Sin" (Merriam Webster, 1998)

____ Sandburg, Carl. "Poems for Children: Nowhere near Old Enough to Vote" (Random House, 1999)

____"Minus Equals Plus" introduction by Kurt Andersen (New York:Abrams, 2001)

____"The Other Side" (Chronicle Books, 2005)

_____Wiedemann, Julius, ed."Illustration Now!" (Köln:Taschen, 2005)

_____Park, Linda Sue. "Tap Dancing on the Roof" (Clarion Books, 2007)

Awards

_____American Illustration Cover,No18, November 1999

_____Ten Best Books of the Year, New York Times Book Review,1995

_____International Reading Association (IRA) Children's Choices Award,1997 [http://www.reading.org/resources/tools/choices_childrens.html]

_____Publishers's Weekly, Best Books, 1995

_____"Professor Emeritus", Moholy Nagy Academy of Art, Budapest, 2005

_____The Society of illustrators,Best illustrated childrenbook, "The Other Side", Gold Medal, 2007

_____3x3, magazine of contemporary illustration, Silver Medal, 2008

_____Notable Children’s Books, Committee of the Association for Library Service to Children. [http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=2562497]

=Articles=

Mark Vallen, "Illustrating War," Foreign Policy in Focus, March 18, 2009 [http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5077]

Patricia McCormick, "All Things Considered" November 12, 1995, New York Times [(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F01E4D61439F931A25752C1A963958260]

Sean Kelly, "Spring Children's Books: Stuff and Nonsense" May 16, 1999, New York Times [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00EED8103CF935A25756C0A96F958260&scp=3&sq=Best%20ten%20books%20banyai&st=cse]

School Library Journal [http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6297234.html?q=istvan+banyai]

Step Inside Design [http://www.stepinsidedesign.com/STEPMagazine/Article/28737/0/page/8]

"Hungary: an open book" [www.ibby.hu/im/bologna2006_konyvek.pdf]

=Exhibitions=

"Artists Against The War," Society of Illustrators, New York, January 2008

"Illuminare" Design Week Budapest. Hungary, 2005

Wordless book Festival, Kyoto, Japan, 2005

“AMERICA ILLUSTRATED” OR THE BEST CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN ILLUSTRATORS, Teatrio association together with the the Italian Foreign Affairs Department and the Embassy of the United States of America. Catalogue Cover Art, Publishied by Associazione Culturale Teatrio. Italy, 2000

Eastern Euopean illustrators for the New York Times "Op-Ed". SVA, New York, 1998