cover image Illustration Next: Contemporary Creative Collaboration

Illustration Next: Contemporary Creative Collaboration

Ana Benaroya. Thames & Hudson (Norton, dist.), $34.95 (320p) ISBN 978-0-500-51701-7

This is an art book to get lost in. New Jersey–based illustrator Benaroya presents a dazzling array of work by 50 illustrators from more than 20 countries, but that’s not all. She also invited the artists (herself included) to collaborate in pairs on 25 single-word, assigned themes—including “fragile,” “speed,” “temptation,” “love,” “death,” “flutter”—to create original work for the book. The result is a colorful, playful collection of pictures that run the gamut from cartoons by Ryan Cecil Smith, Benjamin Marra, and Irkus M. Zeberio, to graphics-inspired and decorative pieces by Olimpia Zagnoli, Orit Bergman, Yuko Shimizu, to painterly works by Yosuke Yamaguchi, and the team of Edel Rodriguez and Drew Beckmeyer. The book also includes “interviews” with each artist and pair of collaborators, based on a series of questions so clever—“Who are you?” “Why are things the way they are?” “When will you be happy?”—that, although they provide a sense of each artist’s personality and attitude, also sometimes prioritize cuteness over substance. 382 illus., 334 in color. (Oct.)