International Prize for Illustration Bologna Children’s Book Fair – Fundación SM 2017 !!!

Manuel Marsol is the winner of the 8th International Prize for Illustration Bologna Children’s Book Fair – Fundación SM 2017. The illustrators of the Illustrators’ Exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair were selected from a total of 3368 candidates from 62 countries with more than 16.500 works, a record in terms of participation in this prestigious event, which has been won by the young Spanish artist.

The prize was established with the aim of encouraging and nurturing new talent, while showcasing new work to a professional audience. The competition was established in 2009 and aimed specifically at young illustrators aged under 35 that had been selected for the Children’s Book Fair Exhibition.
This important prize comes with a cheque for 30 thousand dollars in order to guarantee the winner the security to create, over the following year, an illustrated book to be published and launched onto the global market by the Spanish publisher SM, previewing at the following edition of the Children’s Book Fair, which will also include a personal exhibition of the works of the winner.

The jury of experts responsible for choosing the winner was composed of Rotraut Susanne Berner (Germany), Maria Jesús Gil (Spain), Lorenzo Mattotti (Italy).
Commenting on their choice they explained, “Highly original and displaying excellent technique, the artist steps outside the mainstream to speak with an independent voice - an extremely rare quality. Using strongly symbolic language, the author presents striking images, whetting the reader’s curiosity to discover the rest of the story and what happens next. His strongly narrative yet at the same time, personal style, laced with irony and poetry, avails itself of a range of techniques, a versatility that combines an essentially pictorial quality with highly distinctive graphic ability”.

Strange Mountain (Picture Book, 2016/17, +info:manuelmarsol@gmail.com)