Works in Progress

Etienne Delessert was born in Switzerland and has lived in Lakeville, Connecticut, since 1985. He is a graphic designer, painter, and writer, as well as a publisher and author of more than 80 children's books.

He also designs numerous animated short films for advertising, European television, and the American program "Sesame Street."

His first book, "The Endless Party," published in 1967, was a huge success and made him one of the fathers of contemporary picture books alongside Maurice Sendak and Tomi Ungerer. Some of his books have been translated into 14 languages and read by millions of children. He worked closely with Eugène Ionesco and Jean Piaget. He designed posters, paintings, and sculptures—and created the adventures of Yok-Yok, an endearing character who traveled around the globe. His bittersweet stories, featuring fantastical creatures in dreamlike landscapes, conjure up an imaginary world full of surprises for adults and children alike.

Delessert's drawings appear in major magazines and newspapers, including The Atlantic Monthly, Le Monde, and The New York Times. He has twice received the Graphic Award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. Over the years, he has won 11 gold and 14 silver medals from the New York Society of Illustrators, as well as the Hamilton King Award in 1996. In 2010, he was a finalist for the International Hans Christian Andersen Award.

Several major retrospectives have been dedicated to him: the first in 1975 at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs du Louvre in Paris, followed by others at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, the Palazzo delle Esposizione in Rome, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the School of Visual Arts in New York, the École d'Art Estienne in Paris, and in five US cities.

In 2017, Etienne Delessert founded the Les Maîtres de l'Imaginaire Foundation in Switzerland, which brings together, archives, documents, and exhibits originals by great illustrators from Europe and the United States.