James Prunier is the illustrator of Dinosaurs, Trees, Trains and Elephants in the My First Discovery series. He was born in 1959 in Oran, Algeria. His father’s job as a pilot meant grew up overlooking Lake Constance in Germany, looking out onto the Atlantic in the Landes in France, and then finally in Provence, also in France. As an adolescent, he is marked by the discovery of the industrial landscape of Lorraine, in which he identifies a type of poetry He goes to the Epinal Art School and then to study Fine Arts at Nancy. After winning an art competition organised by the Centre for Cultural Action at Angoulême in 1981, Paris beckons. In 1982 he publishes his first illustrated book with Gallimard which offers him the chance to be more widely known. A decade later, he is named the “Official painter of the skies”, after the publication of his History of Aviation series. In 2000, The French mail service commissions him to carry out “Aerial adventures”, a work inspired by the four stamps that he designed between 1997 and 2000, based on around the theme of the airmail service.
