As the 2020 Golden Pinwheel call for entries closed on 30 June, the competition born in 2015 once again confirmed it has won the confidence and attention of a great number of young illustrators from all six continents.
After a three-month submission campaign, the competition received an incredible number of artworks—11,190 pictures from 2,238 artists—representing a 12% increase of participation compared to 2019. Beyond our pride at such a quantitative achievement, we are also very excited by the diversity an inclusivity of this edition. Artists from 77 countries and territories are now in race for the Golden Pinwheel special awards that will be announced in Shanghai on the eve of the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair.
In the beautiful art melting-pot that the Golden Pinwheel has become, Asia is leading the way with two of thirds of artworks received originating from Asia-Pacific countries that include China and the territories of Hong-Kong and Taiwan, but also Korea, Iran, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, India, the Philippines, Malaysia etc. Besides, a large number of European and Latin American illustrators have answered our call. Among them, Russian, Italian, Spanish, British, Argentinian and French artists are the most numerous.
We are particularly happy to welcome all the artists who are participating for the first time, especially those from country that had not been represented in the past, such as Mongolia, Nepal, Peru, Egypt, Vietnam, Montenegro and the United Arab Emirates among so many others.
Now the harder is to come! From today, the 2020 Golden Pinwheel Jury composed of five picture book specialists from China and overseas is undertaking the hard task of selecting the 50 finalists that will be featured in the Golden Pinwheel Yearbook and in the Illustration Exhibition to be held at the next CCBF in November.
Chen Hui (China), Sunkyung Cho (Korea), Simon de Jocas (Canada), Philip Giordano (Italy) and Jiu’er (China) will serve as jury members throughout the summer to establish a selection of 50 finalists’, which will be announced on 9 September. The Jury will also be reunited at the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair from 13 to 15 November to announce the winners of the Golden Pinwheel Grand Awards and Special Mentions.
In the meantime, the CCBF organising team will continue preparing special programmes to celebrate illustration and illustrators—the Illustrators Survival Corner and the Young Illustrators Avenue will come back to the fair with events and opportunities to help artists connect with the publishing industry.
The success of the 2020 Golden Pinwheel Young Illustrators Competition call for entries would not have been possible without the support of our numerous partners. The organsing committee of CCBF thanks for all the partners.
