Born in Uruguay, resident during his teen years in Israel and art educated at the School of Visual Art in New York, Piven now resides in Barcelona with his wife and young family. His initial success has been as an Editorial Illustrator with a long list of publishers going back over the last ten years and it is largely through his editorial personality caricatures that Piven has honed his skills. In the words of Steve Brodner, one of America’s top caricaturists, “The art of caricature has been reinvented by the deft hand, unique vision and sharp wit of Hanoch Piven” Of one of Piven’s caricatures, he wrote, “It’s impossible to think of Barbra Streisand without that famous nose, but to turn it into a microphone is the special Piven touch that manages to combine simultaneously the visual and technical expression in a most amusing manner. Of course, you slap your forehead. That makes so much sense.”

That “of course” acknowledges that when you’re looking at the portrait, it is so accurate, so sharp in its discernment, so tuned to the true nature of the object it describes, that the work appears effortless, as though no other visual solution could have been considered. And the creation of that portrait was recognised by being judged the best Editorial Illustration of the year, winning for the artist the coveted Gold Medal from the New York Society of Illustrators in 1994. But the apparent ease with which the fluent obviousness of Piven’s incisive renditions are achieved, flatters to deceive. He has a collection of literally hundreds of objects in his studio, which is crammed with basketfuls of toy trucks, planes, screws, springs, Barbie dolls and all manner of mysterious objects, that at some time will find their way into one of his creations.

At the beginning of a new assignment, he sits down and absorbs all he can about the new personality. It is at that point that he begins his search for “something suitable”. His studio in Tel Aviv was near the Flea Market, which proved a fertile source of suitable objects. No doubt the markets of Barcelona are proving just as rich in their pickings.Questioned about whether he was being mean by producing a particularly incisive portrait his reply was, “I don’t feel mean, but sometimes you have to be a bit obtuse, you have to get into something and go with it.” Helping Piven maintain that the healthy distance from the characters he portrays is a feeling of alienation that he has always harboured. "I was always a little detached. I was born in Uruguay, where I was identified as a Jew, then from the age of 11 when I went to Israel, I became a new immigrant from South America. At 24 I went to the United States and was a stranger there, and then was a stranger again when I returned to Israel after 10 years. Being a stranger is to my advantage because I can see many things without identifying with them."

His collected portraits are now published by Pomegranate in a book, Faces by Hanoch Piven: [70] Portraits from Madonna to the Pope and is the first collected publication of his works even though his work has been seen so widely in in the pages of Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times. Organized into categories of profession (TV, Film, American Politics, Icons, Music), the faces confronting us from these pages reflect the essence of each famous person they portray, sometimes in such a minimalist way that a blank face needs only a mouth (made out of a bullet, in the case of Clint Eastwood) to define the personality. Madonna, Yassir Arafat, Larry King, Fidel Castro, Bob Dylan are just a few of Piven's celebrities whose personalities are colourfully exposed through his incisive interpretations.
These characterizations are being put to good use by the advertising industry. An exciting commission came via our Chicago office through the Ad Agency Abelson-Taylor for their client Amgen. Piven has been commissioned to illustrate the Face of Neulasta, a product to be taken by Cancer patients to strengthen their body defenses while undergoing chemotherapy. The drug has been developed to change the dosing regime for cancer patients through a simple once-per-cycle injection instead of multiple injections, eliminating discomfort, infection and anxiety in patients.Amgen wanted to evoke a response at first sight that they were changing the face of neutropenia therapy. Piven was briefed to create before and after characters whose lives have been affected by neutroenia and improved by Neulasta. The simple and powerful qualities of his portraits have been used by Abelson-Taylor, also utilising some of his existing celebrity portraits on calendars for the medical profession. The illustration graphically and intelligently displays the before and after. The success of the campaign has led to him being invited to attend trade shows with the sales and marketing team, as their "artist in residence".