Collection: Iván Solbes

He is one of those illustrators that when you're in front of him, he's drawing you, and deep down you let it happen, obliging and happy for it. Iván Solbes (Madrid, 1974) is a graduate in Fine Arts from the Complutense University of Madrid, the speciality being painting. He has worked as a freelance illustrator for a number of advertising agencies, the longest being the Nobel tobacco campaign for 10 years. He has also been published in national magazines and newspapers such as El País, Wallpaper, El Semanal and Público as well as several publishing houses as an illustrator for books and covers.

His almost infantile style is pop romanticism where dreams form part of urban life and urban life appears oneiric and satirical in his illustrations. In fact, the childish illustration, together with advertising work is the artistic field in which he works most and feels most comfortable.

His large series of portraits of people who turn up to his office to pose and leave comments has given him national fame. He, with his pencil drawing a reality, a personal imaginarium of society which through Solbes' strokes are seen as more mortal and critical, more identifiable and contemporary.