Kost Lavro (Konstantin Tikhonovich), 1961, was born in the Poltava region of Ukraine. He is considered one of the most striking and colourful graphic artists in the country, a practitioner of a unique, inimitable, and profound national style that combines the influences of the Ukrainian avant-garde of the 1920s and classic Ukrainian folk art. Here is an interview with Kost (select translate to English). Make sure you take a look because this interview also contains a splendid little video where you can see Kost drawing a wonderful rabbit - the sketch that perhaps came before this full colour illustration.
Kost Lavo is one of 33 illustrators nominated for the 2022 Hans Christian Andersen Award.
From IBBY about the art of Kost Lavro: In all his books, he uses intense, saturated but soft colours and the graphics skilfully recreate the spirit of Ukrainian naive art – its stormy fairy tale-like imagination and good-humoured irony. The illustrations reflect not only the scenes of the plot, but also the feelings of the heroes, their experiences, thoughts and emotions.
I love discovering illustrators who have their work honoured on stamps. Here are some which feature art by Kost:
Take a look here to see more art by Kost Lavro. If you are like me you may not be very familiar with children's book illustrators from Ukraine. Read about eight of them here such as - Anna Sarvira; Kost Lavro; Oksana Bula; Oksana Drachkovska; Vladyslav Yerko; and Polina Doroshenko. I have already talked about Stars and Poppy Seeds by Romana Romanyshyn and Andriy Lesiv on this blog.
The five books submitted by Kost Lavro to the Hans Christian Andersen judges are: “Nich pered rizdvom” (The Night before Christmas, written by Mykola Gogol), “Ukrainska abetka”, “My ABC book” (both written by Ivan Malkovich), “Farbovaniy Iys” (Painted fox, written by Ivan Franko) and “Zhukrovyi Pivnyk” (Sugar Cockerel, written by Yuyiy Vynnychuk).
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