Image: Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art
‘The World of Picture Books—Encountering and Connecting Across the World from Bratislava’ will run from November 14, 2026, to January 24, 2027, at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art’s Exhibition Rooms B-2 and B-3. The exhibition is the Japan touring presentation of the 30th Bratislava World Illustration Biennial.
Held every two years in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, the Bratislava World Illustration Biennial is a picture-book original-illustration competition described as one of the world’s largest-scale competitions of its kind. The first edition took place in what was then Czechoslovakia in 1967, and the event is now reaching its 30th edition.
For the Japan exhibition, selected works including the Grand Prix and other prizewinning entries will be shown from 383 picture books submitted by 291 artists from 42 countries. The presentation will also include books and original illustrations by 10 artist groups that participated as representatives of Japan, alongside related materials.
Works included in the exhibition are Noushin Sadeghian’s ‘The Vulture’s Daughter’ (2024), Armando Fonseca’s ‘Animals Inside the Stone’ (2024), and Peter Uchnár’s ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ (2023). Japanese examples include Chiaki Okada’s ‘The Red Glove’ (2021), The Cabin Company’s ‘Melting into the Sunset’ (2023), and Nana Furiya’s ‘The Impatient Hummingbird’ (2023).
The museum frames the exhibition through the varied forms of picture-book illustration produced from different cultural and historical backgrounds, presenting diverse expressions from around the world and the picture-book worlds that extend from them. The exhibition is being presented with cooperation from BIBIANA, the Slovak International Children’s Art House, and the Japan International Board on Books for Young People.
