Illustrator Nominee: Brazil

Rui de Oliveira
Brazil, Illustrator

The book is an aesthetic object.

- Rui de Oliveira

Rui de Oliveira was born in 1942 in Rio de Janeiro, where he studied painting at the Museum of Modern Art. He also studied graphic arts at the Fine Arts School of the Federal University. Subsequently, he studied illustration and animation in Budapest and worked there as a film animator. He returned to Rio de Janeiro in 1975 to become the art director of Globo Television Network, and in 1979 became art director of TV Educativa. During his time in television he produced programmes for children, and worked with children's authors.

In 1983 he became a freelance artist, creating posters, book covers, animated films and illustrations for children's books. Perhaps it is this varied background that helped in the development of his eclectic style, of which he says 'it is impossible to find stylistic coherence in my work'.

Now professor of visual communication at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, he has continued to work as a children's book artist, and has over 100 titles to his credit. Oliveira cites his main influences as British illustration of the Victorian period, and in particular he admires the work of Walter Crane. He likes to work with the traditional media of ecoline and watercolour, but is not averse to using other media when he feels it suits the subject matter. Of O touro de lingu de ouro, he says 'I wanted to illustrate it as if it were a popular tapestry and so I used acrylic paint. I wanted the texture … to recall those paintings made by the Black Jamaicans. The technique has those two sides: identification and adequacy, personal identification and text adequacy.' In Tapete Magico [Magic carpet] (2003), we can see the variety in Oliveira's style, but the unifying force is the attention to detail, and the strength and vigour which permeates his work.

Oliveira has won many awards for his film work as well as for his books. His awards include a Norma Concourse for Picture Book illustration for artwork for Michael Ende's Momo, numerous awards from FNLIJ, the Brazilian section of IBBY, and the Luis Jardim Award in 2003 for the best book without text.