Sylvie Selig started working in Melbourne, Australia —where she had selled with her mother— and in 1953 she won a prestigious award from the Victorian Art Society and Sun Youth Art Show. In 1958, Selig’s career took off as she created theatre decors, worked as an assistant for Helmut Newton, and participated in various group exhibitions, including the opening of the Melbourne Museum of Modern Art. She held her first solo gallery exhibition in 1959. Selig returned then to Europe, first to London for a year of painting and then to Paris, where she worked as an illustrator for Elle magazine for half a decade. In 1966, she published her first children’s book, Le petit arbre, which won the prize for the best book at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Selig moved to New York City in 1966 and worked for magazines and major publishers until she returned to Paris in 1970 to continue working as an illustrator.