Esther Szegedy was born in Toronto, Canada to Hungarian parents and began her first days of school not knowing a word of English. Her parents had moved from Europe to Canada after being in a refugee camp in Great Britain. Needless to say, she knew what it was like as a child growing up feeling very different and alone; something that today fuels wonderful inspiration for her own stories for children.
At eighteen years old she went to art school with hopes of becoming a book illustrator. Fulfilling a lifelong dream to live on a tropical island with volcanoes, where she could live outside all year long, Esther moved to Hawai‘i Island and worked as a professional illustrator for 9 years. She then began writing as well as illustrating and today continues both passions of telling stories as an author and illustrating them through her art.
Usually working in watercolor pencils and water based pastels,
Esther Szegedy’s artwork has rich, lively colors that play wildly on the page. She paints animated animals, extravagant exotic flowers, active island children, and Polynesian ladies.
View work by Esther Szegedy on our online store here.