I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. There was a shortage of everything (freedom most of all) — and only one kind of paper, one kind of ink, one kind of paint. I was one happy artist when I became an illustrator in the U.S.A. So many materials! I settled...

Peter Sís holding his Hans Christian Andersen medal. Photo by Milada Fiserova.I was illustrating before I knew what illustrating means. And I knew Hans Christian Andersen stories before I knew who he was.I was always drawing because I was a child growing up in the age before television, computers, and...