Stephen Biesty

About Stephen Biesty

Stephen Biesty (27 January 1961 to 14 February 2024) was a British illustrator known for his detailed cross-section drawings, above all Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross-Sections (Dorling Kindersley, 1992), which sold more than a million copies.

Born in Coventry and raised in Leicestershire, Biesty took a foundation course at Loughborough College of Art and Design, graduated in graphic design and illustration from Brighton Polytechnic and completed an MA in graphic design at the City of Birmingham Polytechnic, where he concentrated on historical reconstruction. Early commissions for Mitchell Beazley and Octopus brought him to the attention of Dorling Kindersley. His breakthrough came when a DK editor asked for a steamboat drawn as if sliced across like a loaf; that image became the centrepiece of his first cross-sections book.

Most of his books were written by Richard Platt and published by DK, among them Man-of-War (1993), Castle (1994), Incredible Explosions (1996), Incredible Everything (1997) and Incredible Body (1998). He also illustrated Gold: A Treasure Hunt through Time (2002) with Meredith Hooper, Rome (2003) with Andrew Solway and The Story of Buildings with Patrick Dillon. He drew freehand in propelling pencil, inked with a rotary pen and added watercolour on the same sheet, and a single book could take up to two years. Castle and Man-of-War were both adapted into educational software.

For collectors: Biesty's own name appears in the titles of the DK cross-sections series, so first editions such as Incredible Cross-Sections (1992), Man-of-War (1993) and Castle (1994) are easy to identify. He received a New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Book award in 1993 and a UK Literacy Association Book Award in 2004.