Dick Bruna's Work

At a young age Dick Bruna started drawing. He drew covers for his school newspaper in Walt Disney style. Dick Bruna's first works were based on collages by the French painter Matisse. Bruna has also been noted to have been influenced by the Dutch graphic design movement, De Stijl, in particular the work of architect Gerrit Rietveld. Bruna has spent his later career developing his skills within the picture book genre, creating characters such as miffy.

Dick Bruna is one of the most famous creators of picture books in the world. He has written and illustrated almost 100 books for young children, which have sold 80 million copies worldwide.

In 1955, while on holiday with his wife Irene and their child, he saw a rabbit hopping around their house and he started telling his one-year-old son Sierk stories about a little rabbit. Later Dick made attempts to draw it, thereby creating Miffy. "Miffy" is the Americanized version, whereas "Nijntje" is the original Dutch name of the rabbit, stemming from "konijntje" which is the diminutive form of "konijn" (rabbit). Some of his other famous creations are Snuffie the dog, Poppie Pig, the bears Boris and Barbara, and his most renowned character, Miffy, the white bunny. More than 80 million Miffy and Friends books have been sold in 40 languages throughout the world. Miffy and Friends also appears on television on Noggin.

Dick Bruna is one of the few living Dutch artists to have achieved worldwide fame among young and old. The work of Dick Bruna is distinguished by its simple and direct draughtsmanship. Not only has Bruna made more than a hundred picture books, he has also designed more than two thousand book covers, over one hundred posters, postcards and prints. He illustrated books like the series entitled Zwarte Beertjes (Little Black Bears).