illustrator archives

I arrived in the United States in October 1991 with my wife, two children, my suitcases, and dozens of characters I had created. Since I arrived, I have illustrated books by American writers, as well as my own stories.

When I illustrate a book, the drawings and the text become one, and it's not really possible for me to separate the drawings from the test. I love to draw for children and create books where I am both author and illustrator. The story I was most famous for in Ukraine and Russia is about a little pig named Hrusha. The first stories about Hrusha appeared in children's magazines in Kiev and Moscow. The stories were very popular with the children, and I received orders from a big publisher. By the time I came to America, there were fourteen more books about Hrusha, published in Russian, Ukrainian, and Finnish.

In the former Soviet Union, artists were very important. As a well-known artist, I was supplied with a studio, materials, and a great deal of organizational support. But here in America, although many good artists struggle to find recognition, there is a freedom to create that is crucial to an artist.

I think that my work in children's magazines helped me to connect with the reading audience. Now I am enjoying my work with American magazines. I also love American children's books because they have a strong visual appeal and the connection between author and illustrator is close. Often, the author and artist are the same person. That is how I understand children's literature. I now write and draw new books in America, and I hope that American children love them as much as Russian children do. My characters now have nuances of American culture, but the basic qualities of the characters show the similarities among people all over the world.

Valeri Gorbachev moved to the United States from his native Ukraine. He has illustrated more than fifty children's books, half of which he also wrote. His books have been translated into Finnish, German, and Spanish, and he participated in many exhibitions of children's book illustration in the former Soviet Union and abroad. He has also had solo exhibitions in Moscow and St. Petersburg.