Suzanne Balkanyi was born in Budapest in 1922. Arrested by the Nazis together with her cousin the painter Anna Markus, she escaped just before being sent to Auschwitz. After the war, Balkanyi came to Paris where she studied at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.

For many years she worked as a zoological illustrator at the Ménagerie of the Jardins des Plantes – the Paris Zoo. At weekends she drew and painted across Paris. In her vacations she travelled extensively in France, then Italy and eventually further afield collecting material for her etchings.

After she retired, Balkanyi began to create more ambitious paintings and prints, and exhibited regularly across Europe. She was secretary of the Society of Etchers in Paris (La Pointe et Burin) and during her lifetime her work was acquired by a number of collections, including those of the Museum of Paris, the Louvre, the Bibliothéque Nationale, the V&A, and by private collectors in France, Germany, Great Britain and the USA. Most recently, the British Museum acquired a copy of her print La Rotisserie.

Shortly before her death in 2005, she is recorded as saying, “No one will ever know how happy I have been.”