Val Biro was born Bálint István Bíró in Budapest in 1921. Concerned at the rise of Nazism, his father sent him to study at the Central School of Arts & Crafts in London in 1939 where he specialised in illustration. Biro became a sought-after illustrator for renowned British authors, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nevil Shute, and Iris Murdoch; however, he is perhaps best known for writing and illustrating Gumdrop, a series of children's books created between 1966 and 2001, describing lively escapades of a vintage car and its various owners, based on his own motoring experiences.
Illustrator and children's author Val Biro was born Bálint István Bíró to an upper-middle-class family in Budapest in 1921. He was educated at the Cistercian secondary school and Álmos Jaschik's private academy (later the School of Art and Design) in Budapest. Worried by the rise of Nazism after the Anschluss (annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany), in 1939 his lawyer father arranged for Biro to travel to England to study at the Central School of Arts & Crafts in London, which was evacuated to Northampton soon after his enrolment. Given his student status, Biro avoided detention as an 'enemy alien', following the government's policy of mass internment in 1940. He studied illustration under Bernard Meninsky and John Farleigh, whose wood engravings strongly influenced Biro's early style; however, after realising the time-consuming nature of this medium, he turned to scraperboard techniques as a faster method. He graduated from the Central School in 1942 (the year he created his first wrapper as a freelance designer, for the Collins edition of Rex Stout's The Broken Vase.), with plans to join the armed forces; however, still regarded an 'enemy alien' he was unable to enlist and joined the National Fire Service instead. It was during his firefighting years in the East End of London that he met Vivien Wooley whom he married on 14 April 1945, and with whom he later had a daughter, Melissa. Simultaneously with his move to London, Biro secured a position at Sylvan Press, the publishing house run by fellow Hungarian, Charles Rosner, where Biro illustrated books with war themes, such as No Bombs at All (a collection of RAF stories), or by émigré authors, such as Endre Havas' Poems during Flight. As an assistant, he also had the opportunity to work in editorial, production, printing, and marketing, gaining wide experience in the sector. In 1946–48, he worked as a production manager and art director for C & J Temple and came under the influence of book designer Arthur Wragg, who helped him to secure a job as art director at John Lehmann Publishing Company, where he worked until the firm went out of business in 1953. By this time, Biro had built a network of contacts that enabled him to take on freelance commissions specialising in book cover design, for a broad range of British publishers. His artwork subsequently wrapped books by notable authors including C. S. Forester (the Hornblower novels), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nevil Shute, Iris Murdoch and Geoffrey Household, ranging from crime thrillers to romance, literature and non-fiction. An early example from this new era is the strikingly unsettling dust jacket designed for Richard Mason's The Shadow and the Peak published by The Book Club in 1949. In his freelance capacity, Biro mainly worked in gouache and used a restricted palette of two or three colours ('three colour line') which was favoured by publishers due to its cost-effectiveness. In the 1960s Biro finally achieved a life-long ambition: he received a call from Ralph Usherwood, the newly appointed editor of the Radio Times, who asked him to produce a drawing of an angel at very short notice. The success of this illustration established a 21-year collaboration between the artist and the magazine, which at the time was regarded as one of the most prestigious publications, employing only the very best illustrators. He also regularly contributed illustrations for the monthly staples of English upper class leisure reading: Country Life and The Field.
Biro was a rigorous worker and led an eccentric private life. After travels by a horse-drawn Brougham became inconvenient, Biro, an avid motor enthusiast, bought an Austin Clifton Heavy 12/4 car dating from 1926, as a family runabout, which he named 'Gumdrop'. At the suggestion of a publisher, this became the inspiration for his two decade-spanning book series, with the titular character of the car taking on human characteristics and undertaking many adventures with his owners, Bill McArran (in the earlier series) and then Mr Oldcastle. The first instalment Gumdrop: The Adventures of a Vintage Car was published in 1966 and another 37 volumes followed, the last published in 2001. After his divorce in 1970, Biro remarried to Marie-Louise Ellaway. Between 1940 and the late 1970s Biro designed around 3,000 book jackets – excluding his other illustrated contributions to publications. In his last years he focussed on retelling and illustrating classic fairy tales. Biro died in Bosham, West Sussex in 2014. His work is represented in several UK collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, while many of his first-editions have became valuable collectors items in private collections around the world.