Random (International) Illustrator Feature:
Caterina Zandonella, aka Cat Zaza

h1 March 31st, 2011 by jules

Here’s a quickie post in honor of this week’s big celebration over in Bologna. Today is the last day of The Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy, where children’s book publishers from all over the world have been meeting every spring for nearly fifty years, the most prestigious international event dedicated to children’s publishing. Oh how I wish I could see the illustrators’ exhibition. On Monday, for instance, everyone was treated to an exhibition on contemporary Lithuanian children’s book illustration — at least according to their site. Ah. Envious sigh. And one of my co-authors even got to meet a 7-Imp contributor—they live on opposite sides of the world from each other—and that’s just NEAT.

This morning, in the name of celebrating the work of illustrators from all over the world—which I do when I can here at 7-Imp and often with the help of the aforementioned and talented Cristiana Clerici—I bring you Italian author/illustrator Caterina Zandonella, aka Cat Zaza. I’m captivated by her illustration opening this post, and there’s a bit more from her below. As you can see at her bio, she spent most of her life outside of her home country, has traveled a great deal, and currently lives between Paris and Milan. She graduated from the Istituto Europeo di Design in Milan, majoring in illustration and multimedia animation. Her first illustrated children’s books were published in France.

Here’s a video about Cat and her illustration, in which you can see way more of her artwork. It is followed by two more pieces from her portfolio. I thank her for visiting.


You can keep up with Cat’s work at both her site and her blog.

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All illustrations used with permission of Caterina Zandonella.





4 comments to “Random (International) Illustrator Feature:
Caterina Zandonella, aka Cat Zaza”

  1. Thank you for sharing her work and video with us! It’s always inspiring to learn of new authors and illustrators, and Cat Zaza is new to me. Her illustrations tell their own story even as they express the writings of another story.


  2. That first picture is the most striking thing, to me — somehow there are… dimensional, textural, and color things going on which make it just stand out so much to me. I can see that matted and framed in a home, it’s just so beautiful.

    I find illustration such an exciting field to begin with, but there’s such verve and freshness from illustrators outside of the U.S. – somehow, the vibe you get from them is just really, really different. Thanks for the intro to this artist.


  3. Hi there! Thank you for sharing once again another very inspiring illustrator. I was soooo lucky to be able to go to Bologna this year, and I must say, the illustrators exhibition was so beautiful that I did have a tear in my eye! Was wonderful to see – they were selling Illustrator Annual books there with all the work, so if you can track one of them down, is worth the purchase.


  4. Thanks, you all.

    Jess, boy, would I love to see that. Thanks for the note. How wonderful you got to go!


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