The Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava is a prestigious international competition exhibit of originals of children’s book illustrations, founded in 1967. From the beginning also Slovak authors regularly attended the Biennial. The proof that Slovak school of illustration was always among international top, is the quantity of awards achieved by Slovak illustrators not only at international fairs but also at the Bratislava Biennial itself. Sixteen Slovak illustrators were awarded at the Biennial so far and they received twenty seven awards in total, for many of them were awarded multiple times.
The last awarded so far is Tomáš Klepoch (*1981). On the stamp is the reproductions of the illustration from the Rudo Sloboda’s book How I Became a Wise Man, for which Klepoch was awarded the Golden Apple BIB 2011. Tomáš Klepoch is one of the youngest representatives of Slovak illustrators. He was a student of prof. Robert Jančovič, prof. Ivan Csudai and he graduated at doc. Pavel Choma at the Department of Visual Communication. He uses the lino-cut technique combined with painting and lately also tablet drawing, where he creates drawing typical for lino-cut with the help of removal technique (scraping). Illustrations for the book How I Became a Wise Man were created exactly with this technique. He uses  variety of colours here – we can find full-colour illustrations in mild tones, but also illustrations where he uses two, three colours at most, which makes him achieve dynamics in the book’s visual aspect. His stylized figures have intentionally deformed proportions - heads are disproportionately big compared to the body, which emphasises the expressivity of the look. But at the same time we can find also ironic exaggeration and certain playfulness in his illustrations. As members of the BIB International jury put it, they awarded him with the Golden Apple because he does not underestimate children in his approach to illustration, but his illustrations are intended to everyone regardless of age.
                                                                                                                                          Viera Anoškinová