Landscapes and Portraits of BCBF grew out of an (invitation only) international illustration contest, organised by Bologna Children's Book Fair to mark its 60th edition.
Artists selected for the Illustrators Exhibition over the past 10 years were asked to produce an illustration – a face or a place – that for them sums up Bologna or the Book Fair when their work was given its first public stage.
We invited illustrators to relive their BCBF experience with an unpublished digital-format illustration. The sole proviso was that only the 4 colours of the Book Fair’s logo could be used.
Our Jury was exceptional: artists who had created the covers of the Illustrators Annual - Elena Odriozola, Albertine, Hassan Mousavi, Igor Oleynikov, Ludwig Volbeda, Rotraut Susanne Berner, Laura Carlin, Roger Mello, It's raining Elephants/ Nina Wehrle, and Peter Sís. Together they picked 20 illustrations that best describe the atmosphere, people, places and magic of BCBF.
The 20 winning illustrations were shown at an Exhibition held at the Illustrators Café at Bologna Children's Book Fair, from 6 to 9 March 2023. It is still viewable online at the BCBF Galleries section.
But that’s not all. Under the curatorship of Chialab, the 20 selected illustrations were meshed together to form BCBF 60’s visual identity.
While waiting to see the illustrations, here are the names of the winners:
- BAZILEVSKAYA MASHA
- BIANCHESSI PEPPO
- BONAZZI DAVIDE
- BONITA RAQUEL
- DAI WEI-CHUN
- MARICONE ELENA
- NOZOMI TALITA
- ORDINOLA FATIMA
- PEDLER CAROLINE
- REPETUR ELENA
- RIO MARIANA
- ROSAS GINA
- RÖSLER ANDRE
- RUFFATO VERONICA
- SARVIRA ANNA
- SHIN AMI
- TITOVA MARIA
- VORONINA KATERINA
- WU PENG
- ZHU CHENGLIANG