The only real flop, at the moment, is that of our diligence in reporting what we are up to. Well, a week after theinauguration of Flop and the awarding of the twenty-first edition of the Illustration Competition, we finally manage to write four lines. On that day, it wasApril 11, 2026, the sun was shining in the charming town of Cremona, and that was enough to give optimism to the willing crew of Tapirulan, who are always prone to discouragement when the weather is adverse.
At 4 p.m. on that distant April 11, the exhibition of Anna Benotto, winner of the previous edition of the competition, was opened – as the first stage. An exhibition of more than 50 drawings, mostly taken from her books published by LupoGuido, among which the last one given to the prints, Karl and the Forms of Nature, came out precisely on the occasion of the exhibition. After the ritual copy-signing, all those present moved to the Amati Pavilion of the Violin Museum for the long-awaited award ceremony of the competition and the opening of the exhibition of this edition’s guest of honor, Craig Frazier.
We have to give due thanks to the large audience that came to our rescue to prevent the opening from being a flop, in part we reciprocated by giving away very pretty pink balloons but with little longevity given the frequency with which fractious bursts could be heard inside the hall.
Now we come to the serious stuff: the awarding of the contest. First, the 12 illustrators of the Tapirulan calendar were named:
Giulia Ferla, Benedetta Bellemo, Natalia Averianova, Matilde Tacchini, Sergio Olivotti, Margherita Morellini, Charlotte Parente, Giovanni Capra, Mariapaola Bossini, Ilaria Assenza, Maria Saccomanno, and Aleksandra Artymowska(click here to see the illustrations in detail).
You may be wondering: but why release the 2026 calendar in April? Of course, this was a very specific strategy to discourage overselling and make the calendar a commercial flop. It was a strategy we bitterly regretted, so at the end of the calendar we released an insert with the months of 2027, a sheet with stickers that can be placed in place of the months of 2026 and that will allow you to use the calendar next year as well. So you can serenely buy the 2026 calendar in our shop and you will not need anything for a long time…
Drum roll, atmosphere and pathos, now we have to say she won the contest! The new Humor Prize, awarded in collaboration with the Image Authors Association, was given to Polish illustrator Aleksandra Artymowska for her work The Last Party.
The Popular Prize, the result of online voting, was awarded to Sergio Olivotti, who with 458 votes surpassed Elena Bertoncini (second place with 404 votes) and Valerio Sigismondi (third place with 349 votes).
And here we come to announce the most anticipated prize, the one awarded by the jury, chaired by guest of honor Craig Frazier and composed of Anna Benotto, Debbie Bibo, Monica Garofalo, Maria La Duca, Francesco Poroli, Ilaria Tontardini and Fabio Toninelli. The 21st Critics Award was won by Giulia Ferla with the work Tomorrow Night We’ll Try Again. By virtue of this victory Giulia Ferla will be part of the jury of the next edition and the protagonist of her solo exhibition in 2027.
We mentioned earlier the guest of honor of this edition, Craig Frazier, who is the protagonist of his first solo exhibition in Italy, Notes. Over 100 works that Frazier has created for magazines, journals, companies, but also his wonderful sketchbooks and Amberlith films that characterize his peculiar working process that culminates in the final illustration. The California-based illustrator also did us the honor of creating a work especially for the exhibition and dedicated to our city and its famous violins.
Saturday’s day ended with a nice group photo with all the illustrators present at the exhibition.
Sunday, April 12, last FLOP weekend event with an interview devoted to Craig Frazier, who wanted to subvert the usual sit-down chat with a sort of walking tour of discovery of his illustrations.
Anna Benotto’s exhibition will continue through June 7, 2026, that of Anna Benotto in the Tapirulan Gallery (open daily except Monday, 4 to 7 p.m.); Craig Frazier’s FLOP and Notes exhibition in the Amati Pavilion of the Violin Museum (Tuesday through Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). For more details we refer you to the dedicated page on our website.
On the other hand, those who want to see a few more photos of the inauguration can browse through the photo gallery where we have posted Paolo Cisi Sante’s reportage of bothAnna Benotto’s inauguration and FLOP’s award ceremony and inauguration.
