The Barcelonan Luci Gutiérrez (1977) has obtained the 2023 National Illustration Prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture and is endowed with 30,000 euros. The jury has highlighted the illustrator, who regularly collaborates with publications such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal or The New Yorker – where she illustrates the weekly Shouts humor section
In addition, the jury has pointed out that “Luci Gutiérrez is one of our most transversal illustrators, who stands out for her polyhedral language and for a unique ability to create visual metaphors. Her brilliant speech combines graphic excellence with the contribution of ideas, highlighting elegance and intelligent humor, as well as her social commitment. With great mastery, the author handles a contemporary language that has opened paths for recent generations of illustration”.
“I am happy because this award is recognition from colleagues in the profession and being a profession that is partly solitary, one works alone and you are delivering the images without receiving much feedback, it is an important recognition that you do not have in mind on a daily basis. day”, the author pointed out upon learning of the award. And he remarked that it is “a joy that there is a national prize dedicated to illustration, because it is a way of valuing our work, which in recent years has had more dissemination and repercussion, but at the level of working conditions it continues to be quite precarious in this country”.
About his drawing, he says that my intention is always “to communicate things with the image, that the drawing is not only ornamental and filler, that it counts something and is not literal with what it illustrates, that it contributes more”. And as for the humor of his illustration, he smiles that “I try not to get bored and I do my best to make it that way, and I use humor to have fun and make things fit better, it’s an attitude, a way of seeing things, and I apply it to what I can”.
Since he finished his illustration studies at the Massana School in Barcelona in 2001, Gutiérrez has worked in advertising, press and books. In 2007 she lived for a season in New York. Although, ironically, he did not become fluent in English, he drew and wrote English Is Not Easy, a book that collects his observations about the people of New York and their efforts to communicate in the language that has been published around the world, in Spain by Blackie Books. In 2019, at the same publisher, she published the Self-Defense Manual. His work has been recognized with the New York Society of Illustrators prize and the Gràffica prize, awarded by design and visual communication professionals from Spain.
The jury for the National Illustration Award was chaired by María José Gálvez, General Director of Books, Comics and Reading at the Ministry of Culture and Sports, and Almudena Hernández de la Torre, Deputy Deputy Director of the General Sub-Directorate, acted as vice-president Promotion of Books, Reading and Spanish Letters. Luisa Vera, proposed by the Professional Association of Illustrators of Catalonia; Pablo Navarro, by the Professional Association of Illustrators of Valencia; Teresa Novoa, by the Professional Association of Illustrators of Madrid; Carlos Arrojo, by the Galician Association of Illustration Professionals; Sandra Garayoa, from the Professional Association of Illustrators of Euskadi; Joaquín Abadía, by the Federation of Associations of Professional Illustrators; Inés Monteira, from the UNED Center for Gender Studies; Arantxa Aguirre, from the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts; Jaime García, for the Spanish Organization for Children’s and Youth Books; Ana Peñas, by the Ministry of Culture and Sergio García, award-winning illustrator in the 2022 call.
