Klaas Verplancke

Klaas Verplancke is a worldwide acclaimed speaker, lecturer, jury member, curator, author & illustrator of over 150 books published in more then 30 languages and 60 translations. He won a Bologna Ragazzi Award, was top five finalist for the Hans Christian Andersen Awards and received 17 consecutive nominations for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.

His most recent picture book The King’s Golden Beard, originally published in the US and reviewed as a "new children's classic”, is a clever and biting fairy tale about self-indulgence and abuse of power. Previously, Klaas illustrated and wrote Magritte’s Apple, an art book about surrealism commissioned and published by MoMA, The Museum of Modern Art, New York and Centre Pompidou, Paris. He also works for international magazines and newspapers, such as The New Yorker and The New York Times and has been selected for the annuals of American Illustration, Society of Illustrators, AOI &3x3 magazine.

His qualities as an independent visual and text creator led to exhibitions in Belgium and abroad, international invitations as jury member (Bologna Illustrator Exhibition, Bologna Ragazzi Digital Award and currently for Nami Concours 2023, Korea), as guest teacher (Itabashi Summer School Tokyo, Japan) and as guest lecturer (USBBY Congress Chicago and St Louis, USA). Klaas Verplancke is also a professor Image Design at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium.