V&A Illustration Awards 2006: Published Category

The 2006 published award categories were judged by Professor Sir Peter Blake - Artist and pioneer of British Pop Art, Mariella Frostrup - Journalist and broadcaster, Mark Jones- Director of the V&A and Martha Richler (Marf) - Cartoonist.

In the published awards, the Overall Winner received £3,500. Category First Prize winners each received £1,500 and the Second Prize winners £750 each.

First Prize (Book Illustration) and 2006 Overall Winner

Tony Angell

Illustrator, sculptor and author Tony Angell has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Master Artist Award of Leigh Yawkey Art Museum (2001). Angell’s artwork is found in public and private collections, and he has written several books on birds. He is active in Washington’s Nature Conservancy and was director of Environmental Education for thirty years.

Birds and nature have always fascinated him. As a child he spent his spare time bird watching, plant collecting and hiking. Bird artists Morris Graves and Don Eckelberry inspire him for their expressiveness, and Tlingit, Tsimshian and Haida carving and Japanese Edo screens for their emotion and form. These influences lead to an emphasis on form and line in his work and an emotional quality that brings his portraits alive.

Speaking to Deloris Tarzan in 1999 of his passion for crows and ravens, he said,

‘Their foibles are our own. They squabble within their families and wage battles with those clans that would impinge upon their home ground. Their lives involve a struggle for identity in their social hierarchy.’

Of his work on 'In the Company of Crows and Ravens', Angell says:

‘Often, when the writer or artist pauses to look closely at his or her subject, even greater mysteries can appear just as understanding and resolution is arrived at. So it has been with this collection of drawings that brought me closer to my subject. Ravens and crows have become a lens through which I have clarified my vision of Nature and my place in it. At the same time they have further informed me of the natural world and its complexity, they have also left me feeling humble in realizing how much more there is to know. The best way for me to depict my subject is to work from the inside out. I have lived with and been in close proximity to these subjects and have a "feeling" about them that influences my illustration. They are not merely forms on a landscape to be precisely delineated, but they are spirited personalities, intelligent and insightful and who knows, perhaps a bit of the supernatural as well. My challenge in illustration is to convey these somewhat intangible qualities in a manner that compliments and expands our narrative.’

Visit Tony Angell's website

'Crows and Ravens is my favourite in the entire room. So passionate, soulful, obsessive. Makes one look at things in a different way' – Marf, 2006 judge

'Ambitious, a lovely book' – Mark Jones, 2006 judge

Second Prize (Book Illustration)

Audrey Niffenegger

Audrey Niffenegger is a printmaker who exhibits her artist-books, paintings, prints and drawings. She is represented by Printworks Gallery in Chicago. Her artwork is found in libraries, museums and private collections internationally. She also enjoys writing. Her first novel, 'The Time Traveler’s Wife', was long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2004 and won a British Book Award in 2006.

The idea for the ‘incestuous’ sisters came from a dream. Eighty-one prints take us through the story of three sisters engrossed in each others’ lives. Although she originally issued them as ten handmade books, begun in 1985 and completed in 1999, the artist is pleased to take advantage of modern publishing to reach a wider audience.

The illustrations are aquatint etchings, hand-coloured with watercolours:

‘I love aquatint for its velvet surfaces and unexpected tonality. You can’t see the tones while you are creating the images, only the textures that will hold the ink. When it is printed for the first time, there’s a moment when the image in my mind confronts the image on the paper. It’s always interesting, even after almost thirty years.’

Visit Audrey Niffenegger's website

Powerful and unsettling' – Mariella Frostrup, 2006 judge

First Prize (Book Cover and Jacket Illustration)

Tim Moore and Xiao

Tim Moore and Xiao founded nth, a creative collective based in Edinburgh. nth recently designed the new Canongate publishing mark and a website for Portobello books.

Xiao took a Masters degree in Graphic Arts at Edinburgh College of Art.  She is expert in printmaking and honed her drawing skills whilst working for manga (Japanese comics). She also likes animation and tin toys.

Music and Japanese art influence Tim Moore’s work. A musician, he studied the visualisation of sound by artists such as Paul Klee, Laslo Moholy-Nagy, Georgy Kepes and Brian Eno. In Japan he studied calligraphy and talked to masters of art and design, such as Kiochi Sato, Shinro Ohtake and Tabaimo.

Mammals is a dark tale that explores the fractured relationships of the central character, his love of drink and skewed cynical outlook on life. For the cover the artists looked at modern responses to tribal art. The dark body language of the figures is reflected in the colour scheme. The overlapping of ‘MAMM’ and ‘ALS’ in the title reinforce the relationship aspect of the book.

'A buoyant composition with a very modern feeling. It has echoes of a Matisse cut-out or a Mirò, but with the qualities of a rock album cover. It catches you at great speed ... arresting, the most effective cover possible' - Marf, 2006 judge

 

Aaron Robinson

Aaron Robinson studied Fine Art at Coventry University and also gained practical experience working for his father, a picture restorer. He works mainly in oils as a portrait painter and fine artist, and has previously exhibited in the BP Portrait Awards. He has recently moved into magazine and book illustration, and his clients include Penguin and GQ magazine. Fine art and comics both inspire him. Artists such as Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and Frank Auerbach stand alongside artists from the comics 2000AD, Kevin O’Neil, Brian Bolland and Mike McMahon.

The original brief for Sons and Lovers was for a disharmonious breakfast-table scene. Thinking ahead to the series of nine covers a new version focused on Gertrude Morel, the overbearing mother. The extreme angle chosen suggests the oppressive relationship between mother and sons. Robinson’s wife, Dee, modelled for the painting. His daughter, born a few months later, has become the model for another Lawrence book in this series, The Rainbow.

Visit Aaron Robinson's website

most original; the single cover image illustrates the whole book' – Peter Blake, 2006 judge 'arresting art-work,

unusual' – Marf, 2006 judge

First Prize (Newspaper and Magazine Illustration)

Laura Carlin

Laura Carlin recently graduated from the Royal College of Art. She works mainly in the medium of drawing and won several awards for this during her studies. Her illustrations feature in numerous magazines and national newspapers, including the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Telegraph, Independent, New Scientist and Vogue, and internationally, the New York Times and Boston Globe. Recently, she has done larger-scale work on advertisements for British Airways, Trebor and Monsoon, as well as book illustration for Walker Books and her own illustration projects.

Of her work on ‘Inside a Rape Trial’, she says,

‘It’s a very delicate, much-debated and emotionally charged subject that differs greatly from case to case. The idea of domestic rape is something that luckily most of us don’t have to experience. I read the article again and again to try and get the right tone and atmosphere to the illustrations.’

'My first choice; really good illustration as reportage' – Peter Blake, 2006 judge

'True to life' – Marf, 2006 judge

Second Prize (Newspaper and Magazine Illustration)

Olivier Kugler

Olivier Kugler studied graphic design in Germany and Illustration as Visual Essay at the School of Visual Arts in New York. He exhibits his work and illustrates for editorial, book and design clients.He won a gold award for his editorial illustration from the Association of Illustrators in 2004.He was led to become an illustrator by comics he read as a child and was also encouraged by his artist father. The artists Hergé, Jean Giraud, Loustal, Otto Dix, George Grosz and David Hockney inspire him.

Ian Katz, former editor of the Guardian, commissioned Kugler to do portraits of people not in the news but affected by news-related events. These included a political refugee from Iran, an East End greengrocer struggling with competition from a Tesco Metro supermarket, and a retired halal butcher from Bradford. He says, ‘Working on “Kugler’s People” was a nice opportunity to meet interesting people that I normally wouldn’t meet.’ His interest in travel and reportage photography is evident in his work style.

Visit Olivier Kugler's website

'I like the way it adapts the style of graphic novels for a series' – Mariella Frostrup, 2006 judge