Internationally acclaimed artist Gennady Spirin was born on Christmas Day in a small town near Moscow in the former Soviet Union. He was classically educated at the Moscow Art School at the Academy of Arts and at the Moscow Stroganov Institute. He has received five gold medals from the Society of Illustrators in New York City, the Golden Apple from the Bratislava International Biennial, and first prize at both the Bologna and Barcelona International Book Fairs. His work has appeared four separate times on the annual New York Times Ten Best Illustrated Books of the Year list. The artist lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife, Raisa, and their three sons, Ilya, Gennady, and Andre.