The scholarship was established by the book publisher Rabén & Sjögren in 2019, the same year that Lennart Hellsing would have celebrated 100 years, to lift the picture book as an art form.  

The scholarship is intended to go to promising picture book creators at the beginning of the career working in the "Hellsings spirit". It can be about "courageous and intrinsic visual art, poetic luminosity, linguistic renewal and / or a thoughtful aesthetic." 

Questioning norms

This year's fellow is Nathalie Ruejas Jonson, illustrator and graphic designer in Stockholm. She is educated at Konstfack and debuted with the picture book Låtsasheten 2017. Latest picture book Lie still! came out this year. Now she is also the first to receive the Hellsing scholarship. 

- When I was called, I didn't even realize that it was me who was going to get the scholarship, but I thought I would be able to sign a diploma to the one who would receive the scholarship, says Nathalie Ruejas Jonson. 

She is awarded the scholarship for her innovative images in a dull color scale that depicts the child's perspective on the world. She works with gouache, chalk and digital collage techniques and her creative circles revolve around topics such as racism, ableism, interpersonal and gender identity.

Ur Nathalie Ruejas Jonson's picture book Lie still! from 2020. Photo: Rabén & Sjögren

- One thing that has been important to me when I have chosen children's book literature as my main medium, which is an underrated player in the culture, is that you can use it in so many different ways. I want all children to know this experience, to pick up a book and feel that it is about me, regardless of background history, says Nathalie Ruejas Jonson.

Picture book status  

Lennart Hellsing also committed to lifting the status of the picture book in society and wanted to work with his art as a catalyst for children's imagination. It was important to him that all children had access to a diverse culture. Ruejas Jonsson remembers when she read Hellsing as a child herself. 

- I remember thinking that he wrote just as I thought about words. Every time I read a Hellsing text, I don't think I reflected that much on what actually stood out, but I just froze in all the fantastic words he offered, she says.

See an interview with Nathalie Ruejas Jonson in the clip above.