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Shmuel (Alexander) Katz, Israeli painter, illustrator and cartoonist, born 1926, Vienna.

Following Austria’s annexation by Nazi Germany in March 1938, the family relocated to Hungary. In 1944, when the Nazis occupied Hungary, Katz was sent to forced labor camps in Slovakia and Yugoslavia. He escaped to Budapest where he lived in the underground until the arrival of the Soviet Red Army. In 1945, he began studying architecture at the Technical University of Budapest. His first attempt to immigrate to the Land of Israel in 1946 ended in deportation to Cyprus by the British mandatory authorities. He held his first exhibit there. In 1947, he finally reached the Land of Israel and helped to found Kibbutz Ga'aton. In 1950 he joined the staff of "Al Hamishmar" as cartoonist and editor of illustration. In 1953, he studied art in Paris. In 1957 he traveled to Ethiopia and French Somaliland. In 1962, he received an art scholarship from the French government.
Private interview with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt, 1979
Katz designed stamps, worked as a military and political cartoonist and illustrated children's books that have become Israeli classics. He died in 2010.

Education

1945 Architecture, Technical University of Budapest, Hungary
1953-54 Art Academy of Fine Arts, Paris, France, advanced studies

Teaching

1953 Youth camp, Grenoble, France, Drawing

Awards And Prizes

1959 Bronze Medal, International Exhibition of Literary Art, Leipzig, Germany
1960 Prize from the Annual Salon for Humour, Vardiga, Italy
1961 Prize for Drawing and Aquarelle, Biennale for Young Artists, Paris, France, Grand prize
1962 Grant from the French Government
1965 Medal from the International Salon for Humour, Italy
1966 "Oscar" for Humour, Brussels, Belgium, Second Prize
1968 Medal from the International Salon for Humour, Italy
1970 Prize for Humour in Art, Expo, Montreal, Canada
1974 Nordau Prize for Art, Tel Aviv
1985 Nahum Gutman Prize for Book Illustration,. Tel-Aviv Municipality
1980 Residential Scholarship for six months, Cite Internationale Des Arts, Paris, France
1988 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), Basel, Switzerland
1989 Hungarian Prime Minister's Prize for Humour, International Festival, Budapest, Hungary
1997 International Prize for Caricature, Budapest, Hungary
2006 Dosh Prize for Caricature, Municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa
2007 Golden Pencil Prize, The Israeli Cartoon Museum, Holon