Pablo De Bella Illustrations

The Dreamer, Winner of the Illustrated Album Contest A la Orilla del Viento

The Dreamer, by Argentine artist Pablo de Bella, is the winner of the XX Illustrated Album Contest A la Orilla del Viento. By: Press Fondo

· 422 proposals were received from Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador, Spain, Germany, United States, Italy, Portugal and Great Britain.

· The prize amount is 150 thousand pesos and the publication of the work in The Specials collection of A la Orilla del Viento. The work The Dreamer, by Argentine artist Pablo de Bella, is the winner of the XX Illustrated Album Contest A la Orilla del Viento, selected from 422 proposals received from countries such as Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Peru, El Salvador, Spain, Germany, United States, Italy, Portugal and Great Britain.

For this edition, the jury was made up of Mexican writer Antonio Malpica, Mexican illustrator Manuel Monroy, and Spanish children's book editor and author Antonio Ventura, who unanimously agreed to award the prize to De Bella, 150 thousand pesos and the publication of his book in The Specials collection of A la Orilla del Viento.

According to Malpica, The Dreamer is “a work that plays with the reader's ability to open their mind to recursion and nesting. It is not only beautiful and charming, but also intelligent and well-executed. A playful, original, and very powerful work.”

For his part, Ventura expressed that “the idea of the story within the story or of the dream that is confused with waking life is not new, but here it is presented in an original way: that insistent reference to the dream within another dream, and another dream, and…”.

In that sense, Monroy alluded to the pictorial references of the dream world of Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico and Hopper found in this work, the surrealism of the 1930s and 1940s, as well as the return to the classical school of illustration, that reflective and primigenial one, but not old, highlighting at the same time its plastic qualities and heartfelt images.

About the winner Pablo De Bella was born in the city of Buenos Aires. He studied at the National School of Fine Arts specializing in painting and engraving. He also studied Comic Books with teacher Alberto Breccia and drawing with Roberto Páez. He has illustrated several books for Aique Grupo Editor, Alfaguara (Santillana USA), McGraw-Hill School Education Group (USA), Progreso Editorial (Mexico), Editorial Guadalupe, Panamericana Editorial (Colombia), Atlántida, Ediciones SM, Proyecto La Barca, Revista Billiken, La Valijita, Kapelusz, A-Z Editora and Libros del Quirquincho. He also creates storyboards for different producers and teaches Creative Illustration at La Ola School.

About the jury

Toño Malpica has more than thirty published books, both narrative and theater. He has directed his works mainly to children and young audiences, achieving the most important national awards in this field, such as the Gran Angular, el Barco de Vapor or Norma and the SM Prize for children's and young people's literature. At the FCE he has published the works By the Color of Wheat, which in 2013 was included in the list of The White Ravens selected each year by the Munich International Youth Library, and An Old Gray Cat Looking Out the Window.

Manuel Monroy studied graphic communication design. His 20 years of professional practice have focused on creating illustrations for children's books, cultural magazines, posters and animation projects. His work has received several international recognitions, among which are the A la Orilla del Viento award, (1996); the NOMA Concours Encouragement Prize, in Japan (1997); his inclusion in the IBBY Honor List (2006); the Art Direction Gold World Medal at the New York Film Festival (2009); his inclusion in The White Ravens 2010 exhibition, and a Merit Mention from the Society of Publication Designers, in New York (2011).

Antonio Ventura is a writer, editor, and a renowned specialist in children's literature and reading promotion in Spain and Latin America. His career as an editor includes the creation of the "Sopa de libros" collection for Editorial Anaya and the founding of the publishing house "El jinete azul." He was the founder of Babar Magazine (1980) and Bloc Magazine (2007). He contributes to the magazines Clij, Peonza, Cuatro gatos, and Emilia. He has published more than thirty titles for children, young adults, and adults.

25 Years A la Orilla del Viento A la Orilla del Viento is one of the most important collections of children's and young people's literature at the national and international level, this year celebrates its first 25 years with an extensive program of activities—about 100—and the presence of authors such as Anthony Browne, Satoshi Kitamura, Sebastian Meschenmoser and Gabriel Pacheco, among others.

It is a unique series—to date it has published more than 225 titles—that show the diversity of aesthetic proposals in graphic, literary and format terms, which have taken readers of different ages—from those learning to read to avid readers—through the most varied universes with a spirit of joy, variety and respect for the reader.

A la Orilla del Viento was born in 1991 at the initiative of editor Daniel Goldin, who at that time worked for the Economic Culture Fund. Since then, this collection publishes an average of nine titles per year, books made by writers, cartoonists, illustrators and caricaturists from different countries, who have addressed both fantastic and realistic themes.

The name of the collection was chosen by the readers themselves after a series of interviews conducted in the early years of its existence. Listening to the reader, knowing what they think, what they feel, taking them into account, is a tradition of this collection that remains in force.

A la Orilla del Viento is also the focus of this annual competition that bears its name, for illustrators who submit a story in picture book format. The winning work, which this year, as mentioned, is El soñador (The Dreamer) by Pablo De Bella, is published in the A la Orilla del Viento Specials subseries.. Source: PrensaFondo.com / México / Ciudad de México

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