Franz August Rudolph de Santis Dobiáš (May 11, 1900 – January 10, 1976), known as Frank Dobias, was an Austrian-born American illustrator of children's books.
Among many other works, his illustrations for the Japanese version of Little Black Sambo made the book a bestseller in Japan, selling well over a million copies between 1953 and 1988.
Dobias was born in Gloggnitz, Austria-Hungary, the son of Franz Dobiáš Sr. from Bohemia and Anna Maria Katharina Fondi, of Italian noble descent.
[2] He emigrated to the United States in 1923 and settled in Pennsylvania,[3] where he started his professional career as illustrator mostly for Macmillan Publishers books.
The illustrations used in the Japanese best-seller were originally drawn for Little Black Sambo published from Macmillan in 1927.