Kwon Yoon-duck

Kwon Yoon-duck (권윤덕; born 1960) is a Korean illustrator and author of picture books. She is the Korean nominee for the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration.
==Life==
Kwon is a Korean illustrator and author of picture books. She was born in Osan, South Korea in 1960. She has been selected as the Korean candidate for the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award in the Illustration category.https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/2023/02/142_345702.htmlhttps://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20230219000081 Her major works include Manhee’s House, There Dangles a Spider, My Cat Copies Me, Tools at Work, and Flower Granny.http://www.kirishin.com/book/16745/
Kwon received a Bachelor’s degree in food science from Seoul Women's University and a Master's in advertising design from Hongik University. She started on her path as a picture book artist with design editing work for Sapsari from Black Country by Jeong Seung-gak. In 1987 she formed a picture book group with Lee Uk-bae and Jeong Yu-jeong while operating the Citizens' Art School. The first picture book that she both authored and illustrated is Manhee's House (1995). During a residence in Beijing, China, she studied ink-and-wash painting and gongbi-style painting using fine brushes. Upon returning to Korea, she studied Buddhist painting with monks.
==Career==
Kwon Yoon-duck made her debut as a picture book artist and author in 1995 with Manhee's House. While participating in a 'Peace Picture Book' series produced through collaborative efforts among twelve illustrators from Korea, China, and Japan, she published Flower Granny. The book earned her recognition at the First Korean Publishing Culture Awards and the Third CJ Picture Book Awards in 2010. In 2013, she received the Minister of Gender Equality and Family Award for her contributions to the issue of comfort women. In 2014, she received the Female Cultural Figure of the Year Award at the Seventh Cheonggang Culture Prizes in 2014. In 2016, she was nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. In 2018, she received the Main Prize at the First Lotte Publishing Culture Awards for Wood Stamp. She has been selected as the Korean candidate for the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Awards for illustration in recognition of her contributions to children's literature.
==Style==
Her early works from her thirties, including Manhee's House (1995) and Mom, I Love These Clothes (1998; republished in 2010), are characterized by the detailed depictions of objects. Her illustrations from this period capture life in Korea in the 1980s.
The books that Kwon created during her forties, including Manhee's Letter Bugs (2000–2022; integrated edition republished in 2011), There Dangles a Spider (2003), My Cat Copies Me (2005), and Tools at Work (2008), focus on the everyday interests of children. Tools at Work takes a multiple perspective in which the book is told from the viewpoints of the workers who perform labor with the tools themselves. The author remains more of an observer. This multiple perspective is an effective way to help imagine the position of things other than humans and reveal their narratives. Kwon also effectively utilizes this viewpoint to reveal the internal conflicts and changes witnessed by her characters. In Pikaia (2013), humans and animals switch positions, and in Sixteen (2019) and Yong Maeng-ho (2021) a shift in perspective reveals that the people involved in historical events may be victims on one side but perpetrators on the other.
The books that Kwon produced from her fifties onward, such as Flower Granny (2010), Pikaia (2013), Wood Stamp (2016), Sixteen (2019), and Yong Maeng-ho (2021), mainly deal with historical events. Flower Granny presents testimonials by comfort women. Wood Stamp depicts the Jeju Uprising while Sixteen explores the Gwangju Uprising. Yong Maeng-ho is set against the Vietnam War. Kwon captures fragments of history in her picture books, and the readers of her works are not limited to children.
Since 2019, she has been working with students. She conducted a project entitled "Nature and I" with students from a school on Jeju Island to express the voices of nature through writing and illustrations and to raise awareness of the climate crisis. She encouraged the children to observe their surroundings and express themselves freely from their own perspectives. Kwon meticulously recorded the process that she shared with the students and combined these records together with the illustrations made by the students and a personal essay into the publication I Want to Have More Blue (2022).
==Awards==
* 2010 3rd CJ Picture Book Illustrations Award - Flower Granny
* 2010 1st Korean Book Awards - Flower Granny
* 2013 ‘Korean Comfort Woman’ Merit Award from Minister of Gender Equality and Family
* 2014 7th This Year’s Woman of Culture − Chung Kang Culture Award
* 2016 nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award
* 2024 the Korean nominee for the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration
==Works==
* 1995 Manhee’s House, Gilbut Children Publishing, Korea 
** マンヒのいえ, The Sailor Publishing Co., Japan, 1998
** Ma maison en Corée, Editions du Sorbier, France, 2008
** 我的新家, 二十一世紀出版社, China, 2014
* 2000 Mommy, I Like these Clothes 
** J'aimimage, 1998, Gilbut Children Publishing, Korea, 
* Manhee's Letter Bugs, J'aimimage, 2000~2002, Gilbut Children Publishing, Korea, 2011 ISBN 
* 2002 There Dangles a Spider 
** 2003 There Dangles a Spider, Changbi Publishers, Korea 
** しろいはうさぎ, Fukuinkan Shoten(福音館書店), Japan, 2007
* 2005 My Cat Copies Me, Changbi Publishers, Korea 
** My Cat Copies Me, Kane/Miller Book Publishers, USA, 2007
** Mon chat fait tout comme moi, Philippe Picquier, France, 2007
** El meu gat fa el mateix que jo, Lata de Sal gatos, Spain, 2013 (Spanish)
** O Meu Gato Sempre Me Imita, Lata de Sal gatos, Spain, 2013 (Catalan and Galician)
** (forthcoming), Akane Shobo Publishing Co., Ltd., Japan
* 2008 Tools at Work, Gilbut Children Publishing, Korea 
** 工作與工具, Wisest Cultural Enterprise, Taiwan, 2012
** 工作與工具, 二十一世紀出版社, China, 2014
* 2010 Flower Granny, Sakyejul Publishing, Korea, 2010 (revised edition 2015) 
** 花奶奶, 译林出版社, China, 2015 
** Grandma Flora, XANADU Publishing, UK, 2017
**花ばぁば, コロから株式會社, Japan, 2018
* 2013 Pikaia, Changbi Publishers, Korea 
* 2016 Wooden Seal, Peace Books, Korea, 
* 2019 Sixteen, Peace Books, Korea 
* 2021 Yong, Mang-ho, Sakyejul Publishing, Korea As an Author
* 2020 My Little Drawing Board, Dolbegae Publishing, Korea 
* 2022 I Want to Have More Blue, Written by Kwon Yoon-duck. Ilustrated by 33 Jeju Children, Namhaebomnal Publishing 
Category:1960 births
Category:Korean people
Category:South Korean women children's writers
Category:South Korean illustrators
Category:Hongik University alumni