Svjetlan Junaković (23 January 1961, Zagreb) received his BFA in sculpting from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan in 1985. Since then, he has been continuously engaged in drawing, illustration and sculpture (the first 25 years as...
Read MoreSvjetlan Junaković (23 January 1961, Zagreb) received his BFA in sculpting from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan in 1985. Since then, he has been continuously engaged in drawing, illustration and sculpture (the first 25 years as a freelance artist, and now as a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb). He has had solo exhibitions in Croatia and abroad: Florence 2016, Bologna 2015,
Mexico City 2011, Napoli 2008, Brussels 2009, Genoa 2009, Lisbon 2007, Budapest 2001, Monza 1996, Munich 1994. He won the “Vladimir Nazor“ Award of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia for the exhibition of sculptures (Glyptotheque of the Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2015) in 2016.
He has authored numerous books for children that have been published in more than thirty countries and won dozens of international awards. He won the Bologna Ragazzi Award in Bologna for the book Gran libro de los retratos de animales (OQO editora, Spain) in 2008, as well as best book awards in Spain (2007) and Italy (2008). As a Croatian representative, he has twice been nominated for the Hans Cristian Andersen Illustrator Award, the most significant award for the illustration of children’s books. Junaković’s animated film My Way, produced by Bold Studio in Zagreb, won Best Film at the Croatian Festival of Animated Film (2010). This film has also been featured at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival and a hundred other festivals worldwide.
