László Bíró

1899-1985

- he was the inventor of ballpoint pens

- he was born in Budapest, later he emigrated to France (he was Jewish, so he had to escape) and finally he settled in Argentina

-It is argued that the first design was made by Galileo Galilei

-October 30, 1888: John J. Loud patented the first type of ballpoint pen

-There were some other attempts to make ballpoint pens, but they were not successful, e.g.: Penkala (1907), Baum (1910), Riesburg (1916), Lorenz (1924), Clime (1938)

-The first success is connected to a Hungarian person, Andor Goy, who found out that the ink should be in a thin tube, so the ink cannot run out of the tube, the design was realised by Sándor Kovács (the owner of Elveco)

-László Bíró was a journalist, he noticed that the type of ink used in newspaper printing dried quickly, leaving the paper dry and smudge free.

-He decided to create a pen using the same type of ink. With the help of his brother, George, a chemist, he began to work on designing new types of pens. Bíró put a tiny ball at the edge of the thin tube, so when the pen moved along the paper, the ball rotated, picking up ink from the tube and leaving the ink on the paper.

-April 25, 1938: he patented the pen, and 6 months later he made a newer version. The rights were bought by Andor Goy, who started to produce the pens under the name Go-Pen.

-In France he worked for Elveco, and later he moved to Argentina with his brother and a friend, called Juan Jorge Meyne (Bíró+Meyne = birome).

-June 10, 1943: they established the company called Bíró Pens of Argentina, and started to produce his pens (Eterpen).

-October 29, 1945: the first pen was sold in New York and it cost $12.50.

-USA bought the license, formed companies (Eversharp, Eberhard-Faber) and started to produce pens.

-France sells the most pens (BIC = Biro Crayon), nowadays we can find these pens as Bic Cristal pens (earlier: Société Bic).

The design

Bust of the designer

-an original biro (made in Argentina) or biro-pen

- in French it is called a ‘biron’

- in Spanish it is a ‘birome’

- ballpoint pens are used in everyday life, everybody has at least 5 pens in his/her pocket, bag, or on the desk…

- they are cheap and can be bought anywhere

-they are often used to advertise companies, products, etc.

- some artists use it as a technique, e.g.: Phillip Blackman, Juan Francisco Casas, Lennie Mace, etc.

- more expensive ballpoint pens are often given as gifts

pens for advertising...

pens as gifts…

pens in art…