Ana Juan facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ana Juan
Juan in a Photo by Laura Martínez Lombardía
Born	1961 Valencia, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Occupation	Artist, painter, illustrator, sculptor

Ana Juan (born in 1961) is a famous Spanish artist. She is known for her work as a painter, illustrator, and sculptor. Her unique and imaginative art has appeared in books, magazines, and galleries all over the world.

Life and Career

Early Life and Art

Ana Juan was born in Valencia, Spain. She studied fine arts at the Universidad Politécnica and graduated in 1982. After finishing her studies, she moved to Madrid. This was during a time of great artistic freedom and creativity in Spain known as the movida madrileña.

In Madrid, she began creating art for magazines like La Luna and Madriz. For Madriz magazine, she was one of the first and most important female artists. She drew many comics and illustrations, helping to define the magazine's style.

Gaining International Fame

In the 1990s, Ana Juan's art started to become known outside of Spain. She lived in Paris for a while and had art shows in Geneva and New York. In 1994, she won a special scholarship from the Japanese publisher Kodansha, which allowed her to live and work in Japan for three months.

When she returned to Madrid in 1995, she began a long and successful partnership with the famous American magazine, The New Yorker. Over the years, she has created more than 20 covers for the magazine. One of her most powerful covers was called "Solidarité." She made it to show support after a tragic attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.

A Celebrated Artist

Ana Juan is one of Spain's most celebrated illustrators. In 2010, she received the National Illustration Award from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, a very high honor for an artist. She has also won several Gold and Silver Medals from the Society of Newspaper Design for her amazing illustrations.

Today, she writes and illustrates her own books and shows her art in countries like Spain, Mexico, Japan, and Italy. She has also created beautiful book covers for famous authors. She designed many covers for the writer Isabel Allende. She is also one of the few artists that the author Stephen King personally allowed to illustrate one of his stories, The Man in the Black Suit.

Notable Works and Awards

Famous Book Illustrations

Ana Juan has illustrated many books for both children and adults. She often works with well-known authors, but she also creates books with her own stories and pictures. Some of her illustrated books include:

• The Night Eater
• Snowhite
• Amantes
• Carmilla
• Otra vuelta de tuerca (The Turn of the Screw)
• The Man in the Black Suit (El hombre del traje negro) by Stephen King

Covers for Famous Authors

Many of Ana Juan's most famous works are the book covers she created for the best-selling author Isabel Allende. Her art helps bring the stories to life before you even open the book. Some of the books she created covers for include:

• Retrato en Sepia (Portrait in Sepia)
• Eva Luna
• El cuaderno de Maya (Maya's Notebook)
• Of Love and Shadows
• La casa de los espíritus (The House of the Spirits)

The New Yorker Covers

Creating a cover for The New Yorker is a great achievement for any artist. Ana Juan has done it more than 20 times. Her covers are known for being thoughtful, beautiful, and sometimes even a little mysterious. A few of her famous covers are:

• City in Mourning (1999)
• Dawn Over Lower Manhattan (2002)
• Requiem (2005)
• Solidarité (2015)
• Unheard (2018)

Major Awards

Ana Juan has received many awards for her art. These awards recognize her talent and importance in the world of illustration.

• Best Cover of the Year (1984) from Saló del Còmic de Barcelona.
• Gold and Silver Medals (1995-1999) from the Society of Newspaper Design.
• The Ezra Jack Keats Award (2005) for her book The Night Eater.
• National Illustration Award (2010) from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, one of the highest honors for an illustrator in Spain.
• San Carlos Medal (2012) from the Fine Arts university in Valencia.

Exhibitions Around the World

Ana Juan's art has been shown in galleries and museums across the globe. She has had solo exhibitions, where the entire show is dedicated to her work, as well as group exhibitions with other artists.

Solo Exhibitions

Her work has been featured alone in major cities, including:

• Geneva, Switzerland (1988)
• New York, USA (1992, 1994)
• Madrid, Spain (1992, 1997, 2011, 2017)
• Bologna, Italy (2012, 2019)
• Querétaro, Mexico (2014)
• Modena, Italy (2023)

Group Exhibitions

She has also participated in group shows with other famous artists in places like:

• Paris, France (1995, 2012)
• Hamburg, Germany (1999)
• Tokyo, Japan (2014)
• Rome and Naples, Italy (2019)

See also

In Spanish: Ana Juan para niños