Ahoy There, Little Polar Bear!

Hans de Beer was born in 1957 in Muiden, near Amsterdam. After briefly studying history, he attended courses at the Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam. His dissertation on Lars, the little polar bear, gained him international success and countless awards, and it has so far been translated into thirty languages. Today he lives as a freelance illustrator with his partner, an Italian illustrator, and they have homes in Amsterdam and just outside Florence.