Rudy Gutierrez

Rudy Gutierrez is an American artist / illustrator of Puerto Rican heritage whose art has been described as “Wall Medicine”, ancient yet contemporary, urban in a sense and musical in feel and is known for creating images that combine elements of indigenous art with that of urban culture.

Rudy’s art for various major periodicals, book covers, magazines, records, CDs, and children’s books, as well as his paintings have appeared nationally and world wide. The award winning artist includes the Dean Cornwell Recognition Hall of Fame Award, Distinguished Educator in the Arts Award, and a Gold Medal from the NY Society of Illustrators amongst his honors as well as an International Labor Communications Association Honor.

His Children’s book art has garnered him a Caldecott Honor Award, Pura Belpré Honor, Americas Book Award, Children’s Africana Book Awards-Africa Access Award, Silver Birch Express Award Nomination, Shining Willow Award and a New York Book Award. His work has been featured by Communication Arts, Step by Step, Society of Illustrators, Art News, American Artist and Art Direction Magazine.

Gutierrez is perhaps best known for the cover art of Santana’s multi-platinum smash hit record, Shaman, and for the Jimi Hendrix Forever Postage Stamp, as well as for his work for Chasing Trane- The John Coltrane Documentary which utilized Rudy’s art for the poster/DVD/CD, as well as being featured within the film.

His work has been exhibited in many places including at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, The Norman Rockwell Museum, United Nations, Kassel Documenta,(Germany), Museum of American Illustration, and at the World Conference against Racism (South Africa).

He has taught at Pratt Institute for many years and has lectured at various colleges and institutions including workshops on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Univa-Universidad del Valle de Atemajac- in Mexico, where he was a featured speaker at the XI International Engineering Congress Presentation and at the 2005 Icon 5 Illustration Conference in NYC.

B.F.A., Pratt Institute.