Dick Bruna

ick Bruna was born in Utrecht (the Netherlands) on august 23, 1927 as Hendrik Bruna in a rather prosperous family. His great-grandfather founded the great Dutch publishing house A.W Bruna & son in 1868, and in the late nineteenth century they had a book store at almost every railway station. Bruna had a rather careless youth. He regularly met authors and designers at his house and as a teenager he gained interest in design.

The publishing house had always been a family business. Bruna was intended by his father to become a publisher too, but he did not have the right attitude for the business side. During the turbulent war years his family spent hiding in Loosdrecht, his aversion towards everything his father stood for (publishing and marketing) grows. He rather spent his time drawing. "We had a little holiday house near a lake so when the war came we hid there," he says. "There was no food, of course, and I couldn't leave the house to go to school or anything, but we had a pleasant time. I was already sketching constantly: on any piece of paper I could get hold of, I tried to make a little drawing."