Willy Pogany

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William Andrew ("Willy") Pogany (1882-1955) was a Hungarian prolific illustrator of children's and adult books.

Born Vilmos Andreas Pogany in Szeged, Hungary. He studied at Budapest Technical University and in Munich and Paris.^[1] Pogany came to America via Paris and London. In London, he produced his four masterpieces, Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1910), Richard Wagner's Tannhauser (1911), Parsifal (1912) and Lohengrin (1913).

In 1918 he illustrated a children's rewrite of Homer, The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy, retold by Padraic Colum.

Pogany's best known works consist of illustrations of classic myths and legends done in the Art Nouveau style. He also worked as an art director on several Hollywood films, including Fashions of 1934 and Dames.

Asked how to say his name, he told The Literary Digest that in America it was po-GAH-ny. "However, in my native Hungary this name is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable with a slightly shorter o and the gany is as the French -gagne (the y is silent)": PO-gahn.^[2]