Vladimir Suteev
Vladimir Grigorevich Suteev (Russian: Влади́мир Григо́рьевич Суте́ев) (5 July 1903 — 10 March 1993) was a Russian author, artist and key animator who primarily wrote stories for children. He is generally regarded as the founder of animated cartoon industry in the Soviet Union.
Suteev's books have been translated into 36 languages and published in countries such as Norway, France, Mexico, Czechoslovakia and Japan.
Life
Vladimir Suteev was born in a physician's family in Moscow and took after his father, who was also fond of art. Even as a young man, Suteev's works were periodically published in the magazines Pioner, Murzilka, Druzhnye Rebyata, and Iskorka and in the newspaper Pionerskaya Pravda.
Suteev came to children's literature from the cinema. He graduated from the Institute of Cinematography (1928), and while he was still a student, he made the drawings for the animated film China on Fire (Kitai v Ogne, 1924); shot the first talking animated cartoon Athwart Street (Ulitsa Poperyok, 1931); and worked at the Soyuzmultfilm film studio, where more than 30 films were shot. Some of them (Petya and Little Red Riding Hood, The Magic Store, etc.) were rewarded with international prizes. In 1941, before going to the army, Suteev completed his work on the cartoon Clatterfly (Mukha-tsokotukha), based on Korney Chukovsky's fairy tale.
From 1947 he worked at the Detgiz Publishing House. In 1952 his first book was published by Detgiz, Two Tales about the Pencil and the Paints. The book was welcomed by Chukovsky in a review in Literaturnaya Gazeta. After that, Suteev published quite a number of books: What Kind of a Bird is This?, Under the Mushroom, The Bag of Apples, The Chicken and the Duckling, Who said "Meow"?, The Helpful Stick, and many others.
Vladimir Suteev had been illustrating the books of Russian literary classics: K. Chukovskij's tales, S. Marshak's "Whiskers and stripes", "Uncle Stjopa" by S. Mihalkov, "The merry summer" by V. Berestov. Illustrated with Suteev's drawings, the below-mentioned books were published in Russia for the first time: G. Rodari's "Cippolino's adventures" (Suteev's heroes of the fairy-tale have become specimens for toys), the Norwegian writer A. Preisen's "Happy New Year", the English writer L. Moor's "Little raccoon and the Thing in the pool". Suteev's Pif-puppy has become a favorite of children throughout the world ("The adventures of Pif", retold from French).