Valeria Petrone

Profile

Valeria Petrone is an Italian award-winning illustrator who lives and works in Milan. Her bright, graphic illustrations have appeared in numerous editorial publications, and she has illustrated over 40 books, many of them for children. Valeria’s illustrations have been published in magazines and international newspapers, including The Guardian, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Il Corriere della Sera, L’Espresso and Il Sole 24 ore. She has also created book covers, done extensive commercial work, designed characters for animation and digital apps and has had her artwork exhibited in several solo and collective shows. Her work is colorful and simple, graphic with a subtle ironic flavour. Valeria grew up admiring the work of Richard Scarry, Edward Gorey, Saul Steinberg, Bruno Munari, Alexander Girard as well as Giotto, Picasso, David Hockney, and Henri Rousseau, and has a passion for hairy and feathered creatures, masks and kokeshi dolls. Valeria Petrone lives in Milan, but grew up professionally in London, where she began to illustrate her first children’s books. Since 1988 she has published over 40 titles in Italy, the United States, France and Great Britain. Her works range from children’s literature to illustrations for advertising, book covers, packaging, digital apps, animations, newspapers and magazines. Her work over the years has been selected by the annuals of Society of Illustrators of New York, American Illustration, Communication Arts and has won numerous awards including in 2008 and 2014 the 3×3 Pro Show Annual Gold Medal. In 2015 the Goodnight Dadà app, created in collaboration with Studio Elastico, received the “Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award” and the “Andersen Award”. In 2021 she was awarded the Life Achievement Award by the Italian Autori di Immagini association. She also pursues a career as a painter and her works have been exhibited in Italy and abroad. Among the most recent exhibitions, the 2021 collective “Wave” East Sea International Art Pre-Biennial held in the province of Gangwon and in the city of Donghae, Korea, in 2019 and 2018 “Mixed Melted, Global Illustration Poster Show” at the Fair of Illustration of Seoul, Korea. “Mukashi, Mukashi” for Images of Fantasy Sàrmede in 2017, W. Women in Italian Design – at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan in 2016 and “Close Up” – at the Palazzo Collicola Arti Visive museum in Spoleto in 2015, and two solo exhibitions: in 2011 in Arezzo at the Palazzo Chianini-Vincenzi in 2014 and in Rome in the CR – Art Palazzo Taverna gallery. In May 2022 she has been invited by the Italian Institute of Culture in Dublin to held a solo exhibition “Creatures of Wonder”, Culture, a collection of 23 drawings, 9 paintings and a fine art ceramic piece. Since 2021, her images from the book “A world conceived by mistake”, written by Umberto Sebastiano, have become part of the Farnesina Collection of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.