Haqqani Awarded at Dinosaur Illustration Contest in Spain
TEHRAN. (Iranart) – A uthor, paleo-artist and natural history illustrator Mohammad Haqqani won the second prize at the 9th International Scientific Dinosaur Illustration Contest, held in Castile and Leon, Spain.
Winners were announced in late November. The first prize was granted to Italian paleo-illustrator Franco Tempesta who depicted a scene from the Morrison Formation in Jurassic period in which an Allosaurus fragilis pack is attacking a larger dinosaur known as Barosaurus lentus.
Haqqani, who won the second prize, had painted a Confuciusornis, a genus of primitive crow-sized birds from the Early Cretaceous Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China, dating from 125 to 120 million years ago.
The International Scientific Dinosaur Illustration Contest was organized by the Dinosaurs Museum of Salas de los Infantes and the Dinosaur CyL Foundation, a research institute based in Castile and Leon, focusing on study of dinosaurs and management of paleontological heritage, the Dinosaur CyL Foundation Fundaciondinosaurioscyl.blogspot.com wrote.
The third prize was given to Ukrainian paleo-artist and illustrator of prehistoric animals Sergey Krasovskiy who depicted a wet forest in Liaoning, northeastern China, dating back to Aptian age, a subdivision of the Early and Lower Cretaceous epoch (145 to 66 million years ago).
Selected illustrations are currently on display at an exhibition at the Dinosaurs Museum of Salas de los Infantes in Castile and Leon. The show will continue through early spring of 2018.
The jury included Fidel Torcida, director of the Dinosaurs Museum, Diego Montero, member of the scientific team of the museum, paleo-illustrators Davide Bonadonna, Carlos Papolio and paleontologist Angelica Torices.
Int’l Collaboration
For over 10 years, Haqqani has been working as an illustrator and cooperating with museums and reference book publishers and journals around the globe, including the Western Australian Museum, Capstone Publishing, Black Rabbit Books, National Geographic magazine, Studio Fenix and Talaee Publishing.
Haqqani received third prize at the 8th International Dinosaur Scientific Artwork Contest, Spain 2016. He was winner of Gold Plaque and Diploma of Honor at the 17th Festival of Children’s Books 2014 in Iran for the book ‘Golden Age of Dinosaurs,’ written in 2013 by Iranian science writer Erfan Khosravi. His artworks have been published in numerous books such as Digging for Triceratops (2015) by American vertebrate paleontologist Thomas R. Holtz Jr.; Dinosaurs (2017) by US-based children’s author and editor Megan Cooley Peterson; and National Geographic’s 2014 special issue When Dinosaurs Ruled.
His illustrations can also be seen in the mobile application called World of Dinosaurs, available on IOS and Android platforms.