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Evangeline Gallagher wins inaugural Folio Book Illustration Award for ‘vivid’ entry
US illustrator Evangeline Gallagher has been awarded The Folio Society’s inaugural Folio Book Illustration Award.
Launched this year to mark the Folio Society’s 75th anniversary to discover new illustration talent for narrative fiction, entrants were asked to illustrate a single scene of their choice from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Masque of the Red Death.
Gallagher’s illustration, which was chosen from entries by 680 illustrators from 56 countries, was inspired by the story’s depiction of the masked figure of the Red Death appearing at Prince Prospero’s masquerade ball.
It was drawn with Procreate for the iPad and according to the judges made “vivid use of colour, drawing on the motif of the abbey’s coloured stained glass and the Red Death’s blood-red cloak”.
A freelance illustrator based in Baltimore in the US, they will receive a £2,000 cash prize and a £500 worth of Folio Society books.
Sheri Gee, art director at The Folio Society, said: “We really loved Evangeline’s monotone drawing coupled with accents of a carefully curated colour palette. The stained glass windows and coloured light were a difficult element to portray but we felt their piece did it very sympathetically. Looking closer, we loved the array of people in costumes and masks, perfectly illustrating the story.”
Five artists were also shortlisted as runners up: Harry Campbell (US), Sarah Coomer (UK), Thanh-Vu Nguyen (Vietnam), Yiran Jia (US) and Zhiyu You (US).
Tom Walker, publishing director of The Folio Society, commented: “Taking a classic American writer, and inviting visual interpretations of his evocative and timeless short story, we hoped to discover amazing talent from a diverse and distinctly 21st-century array of illustrators. The winner and five shortlisted illustrators absolutely deliver on that ambition, each creating a distinctive and visually arresting interpretation of the text.”
