Sara Fanelli (born 20 July 1969) is a British artist and illustrator, best known for her children's picture books.

Early life

Fanelli was born in

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

. She came to London to study art at

Camberwell College of Art Camberwell College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London, a public art and design university in London, England. The college offers further and higher education programmes, including postgraduate and PhD awards. ...

and then the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public university, public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City, London, White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design uni ...

where she graduated in 1995.

Career

She divides her time between illustration work, books and self-generated projects. She has written and illustrated children’s books which have been published in many languages and have earned her international awards and commendations. She has won several international awards including twice being the overall winner of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...

Illustration Award."V&A Illustration Awards 2004"
Victoria and Albert Museum (vam.ac.uk). She won the D&AD Silver Awards for a postage stamp in 2000, for poster design in 2003, and for her book "Sometimes I think, sometimes I am" in 2008. Sara Fanelli became an HonRDI in 2006, the first woman illustrator to be awarded this honour. Member of AGI since 2000. In 2006 Sara Fanelli was commissioned by Tate Modern to design their four permanent collection gallery entrances and a 40 metres long Timeline of 20th Century artists. This art installation was published in April 2012 on STUDIO Architecture and Urbanism magazine, edited by Romolo Calabrese, in its issue#02 Original. ''My Map Book'' is Fanelli's work most widely held in

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

libraries by a margin nearly 2-to-1."Fanelli, Sara"
WorldCat. Retrieved 2014-07-17. The picture book with one folded map in a pocket was published in 1995 by All Books for Children (''one'' "ABC Books") and within the year by HarperCollins (), later reissued by Walker Books. At the annual conference of the

Children's Literature Association The Children's Literature Association (ChLA) is a non-profit association, based in the United States, of scholars, critics, professors, students, librarians, teachers, and institutions dedicated to studying children's literature.Margaret W. Denman ...

in June 2014, it was named next year's winner of the Phoenix Picture Book Award, which annually recognizes the best picture book that did not win a major award 20 years earlier. "Books are considered not only for the quality of their illustrations, but for the way pictures and text work together.""Phoenix Picture Book Award"
Children's Literature Association. Retrieved 2014-07-17. ≈

Books

* ''Button'' (London: ABC, 1994) * ''My Map Book'' (ABC, 1995) * Pinocchio Picture Box; Cinderella Picture Box (ABC, 1996)
sarafanelli.com * ''Wolf!'' (Heinemann, 1997) * ''A Dog's Life'' (Heinemann, 1998); US edition, ''The Doggy Book'' (

Running Press Running Press is an American publishing company and member of the Perseus Books Group, a division of the Hachette Book Group. The publisher's offices are located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with many of the corporate functions taking place in ...

, 1998) * ''It's Dreamtime'' (Heinemann, 1999) * ''Dear Diary'' (Walker Books, 2000) * ''First Flight'' (Jonathan Cape, 2002) * ''Mythological Monsters of Ancient Greece'' (Walker, 2002) * ''Pinocchio'' (Walker, 2003) – an edition of

Carlo Collodi Carlo Lorenzini (; 24 November 1826 – 26 October 1890), better known by the pen name Carlo Collodi ( ; ), was an Italian author, humourist, and journalist, widely known for his fairy tale novel '' The Adventures of Pinocchio''. Early lif ...

, ''

The Adventures of Pinocchio ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' ( ; , i.e. "The Adventures of Pinocchio. Story of a Puppet"), commonly shortened to ''Pinocchio'', is an 1883 Children's literature, children's fantasy novel by Italian author Carlo Collodi. It is about the mischi ...

'' (orig. 1883, Italian), * ''Sometimes I think, Sometimes I am'' ( Tate Publishing, 2007) * ''The Onion's Great Escape'' (

Phaidon Press Phaidon Press is a global publisher of books on art, architecture, design, fashion, photography, and popular culture, as well as cookbooks, children's books, and travel books. The company is based in London and New York City, with additional of ...

, 2012) – a movable book

Children's poetry collections and anthologies

* ''Dibby Dubby Dhu and other poems'', by George Barker (Faber and Faber, 1997) * ''All Sorts: poems'', by Christopher Reid (London: Ondt & Gracehoper, 1999) * ''Alphabicycle'' ic''Order'', poetry by Reid (Ondt & Gracehoper, 2001)"Christopher Reid"

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...

: Literature. Retrieved 2014-07-18. * ''The New Faber Book of Children's Verse'', ed. Matthew Sweeney (Faber, 2001); reissued 2003 as ''The New Faber Book of Children's Verse'' * ''Sensational!: poems inspired by the five senses'', selected by

Roger McGough Roger Joseph McGough (; born 9 November 1937) is an English poet, performance poet, broadcaster, children's author and playwright. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme '' Poetry Please'', as well as performing his own poetry. McGough was one ...

(Macmillan Children's, 2004)

Notes

References

External links

* *
Fanelli
at Magic Pencil – Children's Book Illustration Today (

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

)
Sara Fanelli – a life in pictures
(2011) a
Great children's illustrators
(

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