Ann James illustrator and Australian Hans Christian Andersen Award nominee

IBBY Australia is proud to announce the names of the Australian nominees for the 

Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2020: 

Ann James (for Illustration) and Libby Gleeson (for Writing)

Ann James - illustrator

Here is the Press Release from IBBY Australia:

Ann James, AM is one of Australia’s best loved and most respected picture book artists. Since publishing her first book, A Pet for Mrs Arbuckle (1981), by Gwenda Smyth, she has been highly regarded for her gloriously joyous and spontaneous artwork and has collaborated with some of Australia’s finest writers including Sonya Hartnett, Margaret Wild, Janeen Brian, Libby Hathorn, and Frances Watts.

She has co-created classic series characters such as Robin Klein’s Penny Pollard, Christine Harris’s Audrey of the Outback and Libby Gleeson’s Hannah. She also wrote and illustrated Bird and Bear (2013), and Bird and Bear and the Special Day (2016) which are bound to become enduring classics.

In 1988 Ann and her partner Ann Haddon established Books Illustrated, a gallery promoting picture books and their creators, through exhibitions in Australia and overseas. Ann helped establish the Society of Illustrators in 1988 and as a board director of the Australian Society of Authors (1996–2016), in 2003 she coordinated the www.thestylefile.com, an online showcase of Australian book illustrators. She is a founding board director of the Australian Children’s Laureate Foundation (ACLF).

In 2000, Ann James and Ann Haddon were awarded the Pixie O’Harris Award, and in 2016, the Order of Australia, AM. In 2003, Ann also received the Dromkeen Medal. Many of her over 80 books have been published internationally, and many are award winners. Bernice Knows Best by Max Dann was CBCA Junior Book of the Year, 1984, and Hannah Plus One by Libby Gleeson won the same award in 1997.

Her artwork is distinguished by a number of qualities. Always, in a very subtle way, she tells a story in pictures with a filmic continuity which invites readers to question and interpret each image. She is a truly intuitive artist. Her loosely drawn figures are capable of conveying immense emotion. They are whimsical and thoroughly delightful in their improvised poses. Her work celebrates the child’s view of the world and her images are always astutely perceptive. Ann uses watercolour, charcoal, pastels, and a variety of innovative media. She creates her deceptively simple characters with a sleight of hand – a smudge of colour, the placement of an eye, the scale of a figure, the shadows cast by light – to convey the emotion behind words on a page.

Image source: SLJ review (Elizabeth Bird) of Sadie and Ratz by Sonya Hartnett

http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/04/02/review-of-the-day-sadie-and-ratz-by-sonya-hartnett/

Ann’s advocacy has had a profound influence on Australia’s recognition in Asia and Europe. She has been a major force in Australian children’s publishing since the early 1980s.

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If you are in a school library see if you still have this poetry book by Robin Klein. It is an early book illustrated by Ann James and it contains such terrific poems.

You can find a list of other titles illustrated by Ann James here and you can see some of her glorious art on her Books Illustrated site. Here are some titles that might be in your school library:

One more cover.  This is the newest book (from Allen and Unwin) illustrated by Ann James due for publication in July 2019.