Val Biro
Hungarian British artist (1921-2014), creator of children's picture books
Balint Stephen Biro (Budapest, October 6, 1921 – July 4, 2014) was a children's author, artist and illustrator. He received his education in Budapest and London. From about 1955 he lived in Chesham, where he helped to found the Chesham Society, and then moved to Amersham about 1971 until 1985.
Writing
From an interview in the early 1970s:
"My writing is mainly concerned with my vintage car "Gumdrop." It was four years ago that my publishers suggested that it was about time that I wrote a book for children and not merely illustrate one; and I decided on Gumdrop as the main character.
"I write so as to give my alter-ego a good chance for drawing pictures, though I find that the story I invent tends to run away with itself, leaving me, the illustrator, behind! Each story tends to be based on personal experience and, equally, each tends to grow out of that into the imagination. Each book seems to take a few months to gestate, and then I write it in one long day (or night)."
Illustration
In the 1950s and 1960s Biro illustrated many book covers for famous authors such as Nigel Tranter and Nevil Shute (Requiem for a Wren, Round the Bend, The Far Country and Beyond the Black Stump). For C.S. Forester, publishing with Michael Joseph, Biro made cover illustrations of several first editions: Mr. Midshipman Hornblower, Lieutenant Hornblower, Hornblower and the Atropos, Hornblower in the West Indies and Randall and the River of Time. In 1965 for Hamish Hamilton he illustrated the first edition of Angler's Moon by Leo Walmsley.
“Val Biro” enters the record as hungarian British artist (1921-2014), creator of children's picture books. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Biro, Hungarian and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Val Biro” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Biro, Hungarian and British provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7909072. VIAF identifies the subject as 5455754. The Library of Congress control number is n79114213. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2014, 1955 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Val Biro” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.