29 Facts About Willy Pogany

Willy Pogany is best known for his pen and ink drawings of myths and fables.

Willy Pogany used dreamy and warm pastel scenes with watercolors, oil paintings, and especially pen and ink.

Willy Pogany was born in Szeged, Austria-Hungary as Vilmos Feichtmann to Helene and Joseph Feichtmann.

Willy Pogany studied at Budapest Technical University and in Munich and Paris.

Willy Pogany spent his early childhood with his brothers and sisters in a large farmhouse full of chickens, ducks, geese, dogs, pigs, and horses.

Willy Pogany had early ambitions on becoming an engineer in the hopes of looking after his mother after his father died.

Willy Pogany especially liked to row and to play soccer.

Willy Pogany enjoyed painting and drawing so much he decided to be an artist.

Willy Pogany attended Budapest Technical School for less than a year, during this time he took art classes for six weeks.

Willy Pogany sold his first painting to a wealthy patron for $24.

Willy Pogany spent his early twenties attending art school and would later travel to Munich, Paris, and London before coming to the United States in 1914.

When Willy Pogany went to Paris to study and paint, he was unable to secure much attention or income, was often poor and went hungry.

At this point Pogany was hired to provide the design For The Welsh Fairy Book by T Fisher Unwin, including over 100 plates, illustrations, vignettes, chapter heads and tails, and initials.

Willy Pogany did 48 illustrations for Milly and Olly, 70 for The Adventures of a Dodo and 39 for Faust.

Besides book illustration, pictures, mural paintings, portraits, etchings, and sculptures, Willy Pogany became interested in theatre and designed stage settings and costumes for different shows and the Metropolitan Opera House.

Willy Pogany eventually moved to Hollywood to serve as an art director for several film studios during the 1930s and 1940s.

In Lohengrin, Willy Pogany set his soft color pencil drawings against the grays.

In Tannhauser, Willy Pogany used paper color for further additional dimension.

From soft pastel pencil drawings to watercolor paintings and pen and ink, Willy Pogany utilized a variety of media in his illustrations.

Willy Pogany worked as an art director on several Hollywood films, including Fashions of 1934 and Dames.

Willy Pogany began his involvement in motion picture set design in 1924 and worked in film until the end of the 1930s.

Willy Pogany was commissioned by John Ringling, Ettenger, Reiner and William Randolph Hearst's Wyntoon Estate, painted for the Barrymore family, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

In 1939, Willy Pogany designed an animated cartoon, Scrambled Eggs, based on a story by his wife Elaine, for producer Walter Lantz.

Willy Pogany was awarded gold medals in Budapest and Leipzig Expo as well as the London Masonic Medal, and became a Fellow of the London Royal Society of Art.

Willy Pogany won a gold medal in 1915 at the Panama Pacific Expo for his work The ValCares.

In 1914, Willy Pogany's illustrations appeared on the cover of Metropolitan Magazine, Ladies Home Journal, Harper's Weekly, Hearst's Town and Country, Theatre Magazine and American Weekly.

Willy Pogany married Lillian Rose Doris in 1908 in London, and had two sons with her: Peter and John Willy Pogany.

Willy Pogany died in New York City on July 30,1955.

Willy Pogany completed them at the end of his final years in New York.