---

A short autobiography

From The Junior Book of Authors, edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1934)

Autobiographical sketch of Willy Pogany:

I was born many years ago in a town called Szeged, in Hungary, where I spent my early childhood with my brothers and sisters in a big farmhouse with a huge big backyard full of chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, pigs, and horses. The cows were taken away every morning very early to the pastures and driven home in the late afternoon for milking after which they were put to bed in the stables.
When I was only six years old my parents took us children to the big city called Budapest, where we settled down and went to school. I studied very hard, because we were ever so poor and I wanted to become an engineer and to look after my mother, because meanwhile my father had died.
I went to school for many years and was a good scholar, but I liked best to play soccer and football and row on the River Danube. Also I drew pictures and painted all my spare time.
So instead of becoming an engineer when I grew up I tried to be an artist. I went to Paris in France where I studied and painted, but nobody wanted to buy my pictures so I was still awfully poor and went without food lots of times. Later when I had more luck and received some money for my works I left Paris and went over to London, England, where I became quite well known as an artist and illustrator of books.
I married in London an English girl and my oldest son, John, was born in London. After ten years spent in England we came over to America, where we settled down in New York. Another son was born here, whom we called Peter. I worked very hard in America, and have done, besides illustrating books, all sorts of pictures, mural paintings, portraits, etchings, sculpture, and built hotels and swimming pools. I also became very interested in the theatre and designed lots of stage settings and costumes for different shows and the Metropolitan Opera House.
Later I came to Hollywood where I am designing the sets for movies, which I find very interesting indeed. I also married again in Hollywood and I am living here in a beautiful garden, full of sunshine and flowers.
I am always working hard, because it is great fun and hard work to be an artist.

Willy Pogany's given name was William Andrew Pogany. He attended the University of Budapest for a year and was a pupil at art school in Budapest before going away to study in Munich and Paris.
His success as a book illustrator began in England with The Adventures of a Dodo and with The Hungarian Fairy Book compiled by his brother, Nandor Pogany. Since then he has illustrated more than 150 volumes, of which Padraic Colum's series of classic tales retold is well known to junior readers. These include The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tale of Troy, The Children of Odin, The Golden Fleece, and The King of Ireland's Son.
Among other popular books illustrated by Pogany are: Gulliver's Travels, a compilation of Bible Stories to Read and Tell by Frances Jenkins Olcott, Gertrude Crownfield's Little Tailor of the Winding Way, Rosika Schwimmer's Tisza Tales, and The Treasury of Verse for Little Children compiled by Madalen G. Edgar.
He has illustrated a second book compiled from old Hungarian legends by his brother Nandor Pogany. It is called Magyar Fairy Tales.
Some of his most famous mural paintings are found in the Children's Theatre in the Heckscher Foundation, thee Rand School, and Wanamaker's department store, all of New York.
He has been awarded gold medals at Budapest, Leipzig, and the Panama Pacific International Exposition. The New York Society of Architects gave him a silver medal.

*Pogany = po-ga'-nee, with a broad "a" as in "father"

If you'd like to learn about other artists, click