IVAN VITEZ was born in 1940 in Zagreb where he received diploma of the School of Applied Arts and graduated visual art teaching and scenography. He is the member of the Croatian Association of Visual Artists, Croatian Society for visual culture and the SYMBOLON authors’ team.

Besides painting, graphics and drawing, he has been particularly involved with illustrating children’s books. Apart from numerous exhibitions at home and abroad (Italy, Japan, Slovenia, Germany, Bulgaria, Slovakia etc.), he has illustrated more than 50 books and children’s picture books. For illustration of books he was awarded “Ivana Brlić Mažuranić” prize in 1993 and 1996, and four times was the winner of “Grigor Vitez” state award. In 1980 received the “Heinrich Ziele” recognition for committed graphics and was included in permanent exhibition in the Willhelm Bush Museum, Hannover/Berlin in Germany.

He has been awarded twenty prizes and recognitions for his work of visual art. He is the author of several picture-books both as regards text and illustration.

From the time he attended the secondary school until present days, he has published more than 1000 illustrations. After his taking part in the Biennial of Illustrations in Bratislava, he was included in “The Best of BIB” catalogue (Bratislava - Tokio, 1996) which includes the selection of the best 100 most significant illustrators of the World exhibitted in Bratislava from 1966 to 1996.

He produced a great number of school text-books for primary school. He is the co-author of the “Croatian Primer” (Šabić-Vitez-Baričević). At the international exhibition “Le immagini della fantasia”, he was chosen by international jury to represent the Croatian illustration. The exhibition took place in 1997 in Sarmede, Treviso, Vienna, Paris, New York, Tokio, Budapest and Bratislava.

In 1997 he was nominated for the highest world award for illustration “Hans Christian Andersen” for 1998, known as “Small Nobel Prize”.