1949, Brno
Illustartor, writer, filmmaker, 1968-1974 Academy of Applied Arts, Prague. 1977 Royal College of arts, London. Petr Sís is an internationally acknowledged illustrator, writer and filmmaker. He began his career as a creator of animated films, winning the Golden Bear Award at the 1980 West Berlin Film Festival, the Toronto Grand Prix and the Golden Eagle Cine Award. In 1982 he was sent to Los Angeles by the Czech goverment to produce a film for the 1984 Winter Olympics. However, the film project fell through when Czechoslovakia and the entire Eastern block decided to boycott the Olympics. Ordered his goverment to return home, Sís decided to stay in the United States and was granted asylum. He moved to New York in1984, where he quickly became a leading creator of illustration-driven books, for which he also writes the texts. They have recieved a number of awards. His stories and drawings have the power to engage both children and adults; they stimulate the readers‘ imagination and provoke thought. As well as writing and illustarting books, he also contributed to many magazines in the USA and other countries. In the 1970’s in Czechoslovakia, he designed film posters and LP covers. He designed the original American poster for Miloš Forman’s Amadeus (1984). His art has a broad range and finds applications in various media.