Anita Kunz
Anita E. Kunz, OC, DFA, RCA, is a Canadian-born artist and illustrator. She was born in Toronto and grew up in Kitchener. Her uncle Robert Kunz, who made art for educational publishing, inspired her to see that illustration can carry social messages. She studied at the Ontario College of Art, graduating in 1978, and began her career in advertising before sending work to magazines.
Kunz was influenced by British artists such as Sue Coe, Russell Mills, Ralph Steadman, and Ian Pollock, and she learned that illustration can express strong political or social views. As a Canadian, she often approaches subjects from a Canadian perspective and has worked mainly in the United States. A breakthrough came in 1982 with a Ray Charles illustration for Westward magazine, which led to a long working relationship with Fred Woodward and later projects for Texas Monthly, Regardie's, and Rolling Stone. She contributed to Woodward’s back-of-the-magazine series, The History of Rock and Roll, from 1988 to 1990.
Kunz has lived and worked in London, New York, and Toronto, and has produced work for Time, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, GQ, The New York Times, Sony Music, and Random House. She has illustrated more than fifty book jackets and created cover art and editorial illustrations for many magazines, sometimes earning up to about US$5,000 per project. The New Yorker has commissioned more than twenty covers.
She has exhibited widely since 1987, with shows in London, New York, Tokyo, and beyond. In 2003 she had a solo show at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, called Canadian Counterpoint, featuring 15 of the 22 paintings she donated to the Library’s permanent collection. The National Post named her one of the 50 most influential Canadian women. She has received numerous honors, including induction into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts in 2007 and the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2017. She has also received honorary degrees from OCAD University (2010), the Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2015), and the Pacific Northwest College of Art (2024), and she was recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
Kunz has taught and mentored other artists, giving workshops at Syracuse University’s Illustration Academy, the Smithsonian, and the Corcoran College of Art and Design. Her paintings and sculptures have appeared in galleries in the United States and Italy. In 2024, the Norman Rockwell Museum organized a solo show titled Original Sisters: Portraits of Tenacity and Courage, featuring 280 portraits and related New Yorker work.
Her work is in permanent collections at the Library of Congress, the Archives of Canada, the McCord Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Her book publications include Another History of Art (Fantagraphics, 2021) and Original Sisters: Portraits of Tenacity and Courage (2021), with a 2023 book, A Handy Guide to the Male Nude. From 2020 to 2025 she painted 500 portraits of extraordinary, unseen women in the Original Sisters series. In 2018 Canada Post celebrated her as part of the Great Canadian Illustrators stamp series.
Kunz’s art aims to communicate social and political ideas with meticulous detail and a Flemish-influenced finish. Critics have praised the “luxury of detail” in her work. She believes illustration can move people and challenge ideas, and she tries to stay true to her values by being flexible and continually learning about human nature.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:02 (CET).