Benjamin Phillips has won the Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year for 2024 at the 2024 V&A Illustration Awards. 

The awards – now celebrating their 52nd year – celebrate excellence across five categories: Adult Fiction, Adult Non-Fiction, Advertising and Commercial, Emerging Illustrator and Illustration for Children. They were announced at the V&A Museum in South Kensington, London, on Tuesday 17th September. 

Philips won the Illustration for Children category for Alte Zachen / Old Things by Ziggy Hanaor and was also named the overall awards’ winner for Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year for 2024. 

This first graphic novel from Cicada follows 11-year-old Benji and his elderly grandmother, Bubbe Rosa, as they traverse Brooklyn and Manhattan, gathering the ingredients for a Friday night dinner. 

This is a powerful, affecting and deceptively simple story of Jewish identity, of generational divides, of the surmountability of difference and of a restless city and its inhabitants.

Entries this year came in record numbers, with more than 2,000 works submitted, each tackling a variety of themes and exploring a multitude of ideas through the medium of illustration.  

The judging panel was chaired by the V&A Director Tristram Hunt with judges including illustrator Chris Riddell, printmaker and previous winner James Albon along with author and artist Yasmeen Ismail, founder and director of Gran Salón Mexico, Maru Aguzzi.  

Selected artwork from each of the winners and runners-up will feature in a display at the V&A from 18th September 2024 to 21st September 2025. 

Each category winner will receive £3,000, with runners-up receiving £750. The overall winner is named Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year and receives an additional £5,000, with their artwork entering the V&A’s outstanding collections of illustration.  

Alongside Benjamin Phillips' winning work, Jorge González's illustrations for The Shadow of the Wind stand out in the Adult Fiction category. Published by the Folio Society in 2023, as a spectacular leather-bound Folio limited edition, González used oil pastel and pencil for his initial drawings, later enhancing them digitally. His rich and layered approach brings depth to the characters and architectural backdrops, creating a captivating story atmosphere.

Claire Harrup's artwork for Britain's Landmarks and Legends, published by National Trust and Harper Collins, transports viewers to ancient heritage sites across the UK. Her compositions, which combine ink sketches, brushwork, and digitally coloured relief printing, evoke the romantic tradition of landscape art, capturing the mystical essence of stone circles and hermits' caves.

For more information, visit the V&A website.

@V&A