Illustration and Picture Books

Illustration is made from the start to be printed and leafed through, so exhibitions often show two things side by side: the original art the illustrator drew by hand, and what it became as a book or product. Comparing them shows how color, size, and paper change in printing. In a picture book the pictures do more than follow the words: the rhythm of turning pages, compositions that run across a spread, and what the pictures say that the text leaves out are all part of the work, and some picture books have no words at all. The Korean picture-book author Baek Hee-na received Sweden's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2020, the first Korean to win it.

Find the printed page or product beside an original and compare color and size; on the original, look for pencil lines, corrections, or pasted-on pieces.