Painter and illustrator Tibor Gergely was born in Budapest in 1900. A nearly entirely self-taught artist, he studied art briefly in Vienna, leaving formal education after six months to become a stage and puppet designer for a Viennese marionette theater. In 1939 he emigrated to the United States, settling in New York City. Here, he supported himself as a commercial artist while showing his work in both European and American galleries.

He contributed several covers to the New Yorker during the 1940s, and gained a reputation as one of America's finest children's book illustrators during the 1950s and 60s. He lived and worked in New York until his death in 1978.