Tibor Gergely

Tibor Gergely
Born
Tibor Grünstein

August 3, 1900
Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary
DiedJanuary 13, 1978(1978-01-13) (aged 77)[1]
New York City, New York, U.S.
OccupationIllustrator
SpouseAnna Lesznai

Tibor Gergely (August 3, 1900 – January 13, 1978) was a Hungarian-American artist best known for his illustration of popular children's picture books. His work was part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1928 Summer Olympics.[2]

Biography

Gergely was born Tibor Grünstein[3] in Budapest in 1900 into a middle-class Jewish family.[4] With the collapse of the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, he fled Hungary for Vienna,[5] where his social circle included other Jewish exiles such as the Hungarian Red Army commander Jenő Landler and the communist politician József Révai.[6] He studied art briefly in Vienna and drew newspaper caricatures there[7] before immigrating to the United States in 1939,[8] where he settled in New York City.

Career

Gergely's early works were influenced by Paul Cézanne and Cubism.[5] He created oil paintings of landscapes and portraits, often with a somber tone.[8]

Largely a self-taught artist, he also contributed several covers of The New Yorker, 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 Dolbier), 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.[7][9] His best work is collected in The Great Big Book of Bedtime Stories. He became a U.S. citizen in 1948.[10] 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.[11]

References

  1. ^ U.S. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014; Social Security Death Index, Master File; Social Security Administration.
  2. ^ "Tibor Gergely". Olympedia. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
  3. ^ Reinhardt, Wolf; Schlüter, Ralph (2024). Die Olympischen Kunstwettbewerbe 1912-1948: Band III: Malerei. Norderstedt: BoD. p. 271.
  4. ^ "Tootle". National Museum of American History. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  5. ^ a b Mullen, Rachel (August 14, 1976). "Hungarian Tibor Gergely: An Artist of His Times". Bernardsville News. Bernardsville, NJ. p. 64. Retrieved November 5, 2025 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  6. ^ Éga Forgács (2009). "In the Vacuum of Exile". In Neubauer, John; Török, Borbála Zsuzsanna (eds.). The Exile and Return of Writers from East-Central Europe. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 114–115.
  7. ^ a b Petty, Connie (November 4, 2001). "A Lasting Impression". Corvallis Gazette-Times. Corvallis, OR. pp. E1, E6. Retrieved November 7, 2025 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  8. ^ a b Watkins, Eileen (August 14, 1976). "Pre-War Hungary Emerges in Gergely Exhibit at FDU". The Star-Legder. Newark, NJ. p. 127. Retrieved November 5, 2025 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  9. ^ Mitchell, John E. (April 25, 2008). "Golden Books Given their Chance to Shine". North Adams Transcript. North Adams, MA. pp. A7, A8. Retrieved November 7, 2025 – via Newspapers.com. Open access icon
  10. ^ New York, Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989; The National Archives at New York City.
  11. ^ Roback, Diane; Britton, Jason, eds. (December 17, 2001). "All-Time Bestselling Children's Books". Publishers Weekly. 248 (51). Retrieved June 27, 2011.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibor_Gergely