Shaun Tan

Last updated

Shaun Tan
Shaun Tan 2011-05-22 002.jpg
Shaun Tan in 2011
Born1974 (age 4950)
Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
NationalityAustralian
Area(s)Writer, Penciller, Artist
Notable works
The Red Tree
The Lost Thing
The Arrival
Cicada
shauntan.net
thebirdking.blogspot.com.au

Shaun Tan (born 1974) is an Australian artist, writer and film maker. He won an Academy Award for The Lost Thing , a 2011 animated film adaptation of a 2000 picture book he wrote and illustrated. Other books he has written and illustrated include The Red Tree and The Arrival .

Contents

Tan was born in Fremantle, Western Australia, and grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. In 2006, his wordless graphic novel The Arrival won the Book of the Year prize as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards. [1] The same book won the Children's Book Council of Australia Picture Book of the Year award in 2007. [2] and the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Premier's Prize in 2006. [3]

Tan's work has been described as an "Australian vernacular" that is "at once banal and uncanny, familiar and strange, local and universal, reassuring and scary, intimate and remote, guttersnipe and sprezzatura. No rhetoric, no straining for effect. Never other than itself." [4]

For his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" Tan won the 2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council, the biggest prize in children's literature. [5]

Biography

Early life

As a boy, Tan spent time illustrating poems and stories and drawing dinosaurs, robots and spaceships. At school he was known as a talented artist. [6] At the age of eleven, he became a fan of The Twilight Zone television series as well as books that bore similar themes. Tan cites Ray Bradbury as a favourite at this time. These stories led to Tan writing his own short stories. Of his effort at writing as a youth, Tan tells, "I have a small pile of rejection letters as testament to this ambition!" [7] At the age of sixteen, Tan's first illustration appeared in the Australian magazine Aurealis in 1990. [7]

Transition to illustration

Tan almost studied to become a geneticist, and enjoyed chemistry, physics, history and English while in high school as well as art and claimed that he did not really know what he wanted to do. [7] During his university studies, Tan decided to move from academic studies to working as an artist. [8]

Tan continued his education at the University of Western Australia where he studied Fine Arts, English Literature and History. While this was of interest to him, there was little practical work involved. [8] In 1995, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts. [9]

Work process

Initially, Tan worked in black and white because the final reproductions would be printed that way. Some black and white mediums he used include pens, inks, acrylics, charcoal, scraperboard, photocopies, and linocuts. [7] Tan's current colour works include multiple different colours. He uses a graphite pencil to make sketches on ordinary copy paper. The sketches are then reproduced numerous times with different versions varying with parts added or removed. Sometimes scissors are used for this purpose. The cut and paste collage idea in these early stages is often extend to the finished production with many of his illustrations using such materials as "glass, metal, cuttings from other books and dead insects". [7]

Tan describes himself as a slow worker who revises his work many times along the way. He is interested in loss and alienation, and believes that children in particular react well to issues of natural justice. He feels he is "like a translator" of ideas, and is happy and flattered to see his work adapted and interpreted in film and music (such as by the Australian Chamber Orchestra). [10]

Influences

Tan draws from a large source of inspiration and cites many influences on his work. His comment on the subject is: "I'm pretty omnivorous when it comes to influences, and I like to admit this openly." [7] Some influences are very direct. The Lost Thing is a strong example where Tan makes visual references to famous artworks. Many of his influences are a lot more subtle visually, some of the influences are ideological.

Patronage

The Shaun Tan Award for Young Artists is sponsored by the City of Subiaco and open to all Perth school children between 5 and 17 years. The award is aimed at encouraging creativity in two-dimensional works. It is held annually with award winners announced in May and finalists' works exhibited at the Subiaco Library throughout June. [11]

Awards

1992
L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest: First Australian to win [7]
1993
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Nominated for Relics [12]
1995
Ditmar Award, Professional Artwork, Winner for Aurealis and Eidolon [7]
1996
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Winner for Eidolon Issue 19 (Cover) [12]
1997
Ditmar Award, Professional Artwork, Nominated for artwork in Eidolon and the cover of The Stray Cat [12]
1998
Crichton Award, Winner for The Viewer
Children's Book Council of Australia, Notable Book for The Viewer
Ditmar Award, Artwork/Artist, Nominated for The Viewer [12]
Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Children's Book, Shortlisted for The Playground
1999
Aurealis Conveners' Award for Excellence for The Rabbits
Children's Book Council of Australia, Notable Book for The Playground
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Winner for The Rabbits
Ditmar Award, Australian Professional Artwork, Nominated for The Rabbits [12]
Spectrum Gold Award for Book Illustration for The Rabbits
2000
APA Design Award for Memorial
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Honour Book for Memorial
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Winner for The Coode St Review of Science Fiction [12]
Spectrum Gold Award for Book Illustration
Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Writing for Young Adults award, Shortlisted for Lost Thing [13]
2001
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Winner for The Lost Thing [12]
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Honour Book for The Lost Thing
Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, Children's Books, Shortlisted for Red Tree
World Fantasy Award for Best Artist [14]
2002
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Honour Book for The Red Tree
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature Winner for Red Tree
2006
Premier's Prize and Children's Books category winner in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards for The Arrival
2007
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Nominated for The Arrival [12]
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Honour Book for The Lost Thing
World Fantasy Award for Best Artist [15]
New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Community Relations Commission Award for The Arrival
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year for "The Arrival".
2008
Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize for Best Comic Book for Là où vont nos pères, the French edition of The Arrival [16]
Hugo Award, Nominated for Best Related Book for The Arrival [17]
Hugo Award, Nominated for Best Professional Artist (also in 2009 and 2010)
Western Australian Premier's Book Awards Young Adult category winner for Tales from Outer Suburbia
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Special Citation for The Arrival [18]
2009
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Winner for Tales from Outer Suburbia [12]
Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Honour Book for The Lost Thing
World Fantasy Award for Best Artist [14]
2010
Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, winner of the Children's Literature Award category and the South Australian Premier's Award for Tales from Outer Suburbia
Dromkeen Medal
Hugo Award, Best Professional Artist
2011
Academy Award, Won Best Short Film (Animated) for The Lost Thing
Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award [5]
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Winner for The Lost Thing [12]
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Nominated for Australis Imaginarium [12]
Hugo Award, Best Professional Artist [19]
Peter Pan Prize for the Swedish translation of The Arrival [20]
2014
Locus Award, Artist [12]
Ditmar Award, Artwork, Winner for Rules of Summer [12]
Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Picture Book Honor for Rules of Summer [18]
2019
World Fantasy Award for Best Artist, Finalist [21] :Children's Book Council of Australia, Picture Book of the Year, Winner for Cicada [22]

2020

Kate Greenaway Medal, Winner for Tales from the Inner City [23]

Adaptations

Works

Books

As illustrator

  • The Pipe, by James Moloney (1996)
  • The Stray Cat, by Steven Paulsen (1996)
  • The Doll, by Janine Burke (1997)
  • The Half Dead, by Garry Disher (1997)
  • The Viewer, written by Gary Crew (1997)
  • The Rabbits, written by John Marsden (1998)
  • The Hicksville Horror, by Nette Hilton (1999)
  • The Puppet, by Ian Bone (1999)
  • Memorial, written by Gary Crew (1999)
  • Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link (2008)

As author and illustrator

Installations

Related Research Articles

John Marsden is an Australian writer and alternative school principal. Marsden's books have been translated into eleven languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isobelle Carmody</span> Australian writer

Isobelle Jane Carmody is an Australian writer of science fiction, fantasy, children's literature, and young adult literature. She is recipient of the Aurealis Award for best children's fiction.

Robert Roger Ingpen AM, FRSA is an Australian graphic designer, illustrator, and writer. For his "lasting contribution" as a children's illustrator he received the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Williams (author)</span> Australian writer

Sean Llewellyn Williams is an Australian author of science fiction who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. Several of his books have been New York Times best-sellers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Strahan</span> Northern Irish-born Australian editor and publisher

Jonathan Strahan is an editor and publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. His family moved to Perth, Western Australia in 1968, and he graduated from the University of Western Australia with a Bachelor of Arts in 1986.

<i>The Red Tree</i> (Shaun Tan) 2001 picture book by Shaun Tan

The Red Tree (2001), written and illustrated by Shaun Tan, is a picture book that presents a fragmented journey through a dark world. The text is sparse and the illustrations are dark and surreal.

The Ditmar Award is Australia's oldest and best-known science fiction, fantasy and horror award, presented annually since 1969, usually at the Australian "Natcon". The historical nominations and results of the Award follow.

Jeannie Baker is an English-born Australian children's picture book author and artist, known for her collage illustrations and her concern for the natural environment. Her books have won many awards.

Victor Kelleher is an Australian writer. Kelleher was born in London and moved to Africa with his parents, at the age of fifteen. He spent the next twenty years travelling and studying in Africa, before moving to New Zealand. Kelleher received a Masters from St Andrew's University and a Ph.D. in English Literature from The University of South Africa. He has taught in Africa, New Zealand and Australia. While in New Zealand, he began writing part-time, prompted by homesickness for Africa. He moved to Australia in 1976, with his South African wife, Alison, and was associate professor at the University of New England, in Armidale, New South Wales, before moving to Sydney to write full-time. After receiving a grant from the Australia Council Literature Board, Kelleher spent six months of 1996 at the Kessing Writers' Studio in Paris. Many of the books he has written have been based on his childhood and his travels in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Collins (fantasy writer)</span> Australian writer and editor

Paul Collins is an Australian writer and editor who specializes in science fiction and fantasy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alison Goodman</span> Australian writer

Alison Goodman is an Australian writer of books for young adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tansy Rayner Roberts</span> Australian fantasy writer (born 1978)

Tansy Rayner Roberts is an Australian fantasy writer. Her short stories have been published in a variety of genre magazines, including Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine and Aurealis. She also writes crime fiction as Livia Day.

Eidolon Publications was a small press publisher based in North Perth, Western Australia. The company previously published the speculative fiction magazine Eidolon which ran from 1990 to 2000 and published books under the name of Eidolon Books.

Chimaera Publications is a publisher based in Mount Waverley, Victoria, Australia. The company currently publishes the speculative fiction magazine Aurealis as well as running the Aurealis Awards.

The Ditmar Award has been awarded annually since 1969 at the Australian National Science Fiction Convention to recognise achievement in Australian science fiction and science fiction fandom. The award is similar to the Hugo Award but on a national rather than international scale.

<i>The Lost Thing</i>

The Lost Thing is a picture book written and illustrated by Shaun Tan that was also adapted into an Academy Award-winning animated short film.

Steven Paulsen is an Australian writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror fiction whose work has been published in books, magazines, journals and newspapers around the world. He is the author of the best selling children's book, The Stray Cat, which has seen publication in several foreign language editions. His short story collection, Shadows on the Wall: Weird Tales of Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Supernatural), won the 2018 Australian Shadows Award for Best Collected Work, and his short stories have appeared in anthologies such as Dreaming Down-Under, Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror, Strange Fruit, Fantastic Worlds, The Cthulhu Cycle: Thirteen Tentacles of Terror, and Cthulhu Deep Down Under: Volume 3.

The Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature, from 2024 the South Australian Literary Awards, comprise a group of biennially-granted literary awards established in 1986 by the Government of South Australia, announced during Adelaide Writers' Week, as part of the Adelaide Festival. The awards include national as well as state-based prizes, and offer three fellowships for South Australian writers. Several categories have been added to the original four.

<i>The Arrival</i> (graphic novel) 2006 graphic novel by Shaun Tan

The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel written by Shaun Tan and published by Hodder Children's Books in 2006. The book is 128 pages long and divided into six chapters; it is composed of small, medium, and large panels, and often features pages of full artwork. It features an immigrant's life in an imaginary world that sometimes vaguely resembles our own. Without the use of dialogue or text, Shaun Tan portrays the experience of a father emigrating to a new land. Tan differentiates The Arrival from children's picture books, explaining that there's more emphasis on continuity in texts with multiple frames and panels, and that a graphic novel text like his more closely resembles a film making process. Shaun Tan has said he wanted his book to build a kind of empathy in readers: "In Australia, people don't stop to imagine what it's like for some of these refugees. They just see them as a problem once they're here, without thinking about the bigger picture. I don't expect the book to change anybody's opinion about things, but if it at least makes them pause to think, I'll feel as if I've succeeded in something."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Byrne</span> Australian film and TV producer

Sophie Byrne is an Australian film and TV producer, best known for the Academy Award winning animated short The Lost Thing.

References

  1. "2007 NSW Premier's Literary Awards", The Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 2007
  2. "Winners 2007", Book of the Year Awards, CBCA.
  3. "Shaun Tan", Premier's Book Awards Hall of Fame, State Library of Western Australia .
  4. Robb, Peter (13 September 2013). "The view from outside". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  5. 1 2 "2011: Shaun Tan: A masterly visual storyteller" Archived 15 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine . The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Retrieved 2012-08-13.
  6. "Biography: Shaun Tan". Scholastic. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Haber, Karen (December 2001). "Shaun Tan: Out of Context". Locus (12). Retrieved 25 July 2007.
  8. 1 2 "Shaun Tan", Visual arts requirements case studies, NSW HSC Online.
  9. Agent, AustLit.
  10. "Shaun Tan: Tales from Outer Suburbia", The Book Show , ABC Radio National, 29 May 2008
  11. Shaun Tan Award for Young Artists [ permanent dead link ].
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Science fiction awards database".
  13. "Western Australian Premier's Book Awards – 2000 Shortlist". State Library of Western Australia.
  14. 1 2 "Award Winners and Nominees". World Fantasy Convention. 2010. Retrieved 4 February 2011.
  15. "World Fantasy Awards Winners", Locus Online News, November 2007.
  16. "Palmarès Officiel 2008 Fauve D'Or: Prix du Meilleur Album" [Official 2008 Fauve D'Or trophy: Best album prize]. Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême (in French). Archived from the original on 28 January 2008. Retrieved 27 January 2008.
  17. "2008 Hugo Award Nomination list". Denvention. Archived from the original on 21 December 2008. Retrieved 29 March 2008.
  18. 1 2 "Past Boston Globe – Horn Book Award Winners – The Horn Book". hbook.com. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  19. "2011 Hugo Award Winners". The Hugo Awards. 21 August 2011. Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  20. "Tidigare mottagare". Peter Pan-priset (in Swedish). International Board on Books for Young People . Retrieved 27 August 2014.
  21. "World Fantasy Awards 2019 | World Fantasy Convention" . Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  22. "CBCA Awards 2019 winners announced". Books+Publishing. 16 August 2019. Retrieved 16 August 2019.
  23. Cowdrey, Katherine (17 June 2020). "McGowan and Tan awarded CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals". The Bookseller.
  24. Queensland Performing Arts Centre Media Release Archived 19 August 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  25. 1 2 Australian Chamber Orchestra The Red Tree Accessed: 2008-05-29
  26. Lothian Books
  27. "Jigsaw Theatre Company". Archived from the original on 30 August 2007. Retrieved 6 November 2007.
  28. Homepage – The Arts Centre – the home of the performing arts in Melbourne
  29. "The Arrival – Red Leap Theatre". Australian Stage. 12 January 2009. Retrieved 12 January 2009.
  30. "Orkestra of the Underground".
  31. Tan, Shaun (3 November 2020). Dog. Crows Nest, NSW. ISBN   978-1-76052-613-9. OCLC   1191088993.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  32. Shaun, Tan. "The Tea Party" . Retrieved 6 September 2014.

Bibliography