Illustrator and author Peter Sis Receives the 2022 BBLA Award
BBLA is pleased to announce that Peter Sis, a Czech-American illustrator, author, and filmmaker, receives the 2022 BBLA Award for Unparalleled Service to the Czech and Slovak Communities. He will be honored on September 22 at the 2022 Annual Gala organized by BBLA and the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation. Please join us for the event.
“We honor Peter for his many achievements in promoting the Czech culture and history, the tradition of illustration as well as contributing his work, time, talent and energy to advocating for human rights through the arts. Peter’s beautiful books bring joy and introduce important life stories to young as well as adult readers around the world. Two of his publications speak directly about his native Czechoslovakia – The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain and Nicky and Vera. Both books amplify the value of freedom, one’s own responsibility, and also one’s power to make a change. Peter has given these stories a new voice, telling them in his unique way,” said Joseph Balaz, President, BBLA.
Peter Sis was born in 1949 in Brno, Moravia, and grew up in Prague. He started out as a musician and music publicist, designing and painting posters and album covers, later making music videos. He graduated from Prague's Academy of Applied Arts and The Royal College of Art in London. When he graduated, he began a career as a filmmaker, later winning the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his animated short, Heads (1980). In 1982, Peter received permission to leave communist Czechoslovakia for Los Angeles, where he filmed the theme song for the Olympic Games, but then the games were boycotted by the Eastern Bloc countries and Sís decided to stay in the US. Today he lives in Irvington, New York.
Sis’ books, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, Tibet Through the Red Box, and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain were each named Caldecott Honor Books by the American Library Association, and The Wall was also awarded the Robert F. Sibert Medal for the most distinguished informational book for young readers. In addition, he has had seven books named to The New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year list, was the first children’s book illustrator to win the MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2012 won the Hans Christian Andersen Award for lifelong achievement, the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children’s books.
His art, including three-dimensional works, has been exhibited in Europe, Asia, North America, and Mexico. He has also worked in public space, most famously with mosaics for the New York subway and large-scale tapestries at airports in Prague, Dublin and Cape Town.
In 2003 he started working with Art for Amnesty on behalf of Amnesty International when he designed the poster for the inaugural Ambassador of Conscience Award presented to Vaclav Havel in Dublin. Based on the initiative of Bill Shipsey, he designed a tapestry tribute to Vaclav Havel at Vaclav Havel Airport in Prague followed by a total of ten other tapestries honoring - among others - Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., poet Seamus Heaney, and singer John Lennon. In addition, he designed two azulejo murals for Art for Amnesty: one, Simorg – Thirty Birds already installed in Lisbon, and a large-scale, almost 300 square meter, azulejo mural Velvet Bridge, awaiting installation on a wall in Prague’s Mala Strana.
