Miles Hyman was born in Bennington, Vermont in 1962. After drawing for many years as a child, he went to Buxton School in Williamstown, MA where he began to paint. He went on to Wesleyan University where he studied printmaking with David Schorr. In 1985 he moved to Paris where he studied drawing at the renowned Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
After forays into music (five years performing and recording with the Choeur de l’Orchestre de Paris under Daniel Barenboïm) and archaeology (assisted in the excavation of the Louvre’s Cour Napoleon where I.M. Pei’s glass pyramid now stands), Hyman chose to devote himself to drawing and painting and became a full-time visual artist.
His first books appeared with Paris-based Futuropolis, and included graphic adaptations of Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer and Conrad’s The Secret Agent. By the late 1980’s his drawings were appearing in children’s books for Gallimard, le Seuil and Hachette, as well as well-known French dailies such as Le Monde and Libération. His pastel paintings were featured in galleries in Paris (Galerie Rohwedder, Galerie Medicis), Geneva (Papiers-gras), Brussels (Sans-titre) and Barcelona (Galeria Maeght). In 1990 his works were featured in a solo show at the major Paris museum Le Palais de Tokyo and the graphic arts magazine Bàt singled him out as one of the 100 most significant artists of the coming decade.
Indeed by the early 1990’s his work began to appear in the United States as Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Hyperion and Chronicle Books became his first american publishers. Hyman’s art has appeared in The New Yorker Magazine, The Boston Globe and The New York Times amongst many others.
In 1994 Hyman decided to relocate to Los Angeles, where he lived thru 2002 in order to concentrate on his work for this growing number of U.S. clients. During that time, in addition to continued work in publishing, he created title sequences for the Odyssey network, the French program “Cinéma de Poche” and drop scenery for the Broadway production of Peter Pan at the Marriott Marquis Theatre featuring Cathy Rigby. He also began a long collaboration with the Vermont firm Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, and has been their featured artist for packaging and promotion since 2001.
Returning to Paris in 2002 Hyman has managed to pursue a wide variety of projects on both sides of the Atlantic, working for a vast array of clients in publishing, editorial, advertising and the fine arts. His recent work in the United States includes C.D. Mannis’ Julia Morgan Built a Castle with Viking, a selection of illustrated O. Henry Stories published by Sterling and an upcoming picture book with Knopf, entitled Black Diamond by Deborah Blumenthal. Paris projects include Perrault’s famous tale Le Petit Poucet with Gallimard-jeunesse, a graphic-novel adaptation of Jim Thompson’s Savage Night with Casterman/Rivages, as well as solo shows of his drawings and paintings in Paris, Avignon and Geneva.
