We are thrilled to announce the 2021 Texas Book Festival poster artist is San Antonio-based artist Clemente Guzman! The selected piece, Viva Texas Rivers!, will also be the cover of a book of essays by the same name from Texas A&M Press. Guzman’s career embodies this love of Texas wildlife and nature, which seems appropriate for 2021 as we have sought solace in our beautiful state, as well as in books.
Guzman was a Texas Parks and Wildlife staff artist from 1988-2017. Career highlights include producing five Texas Conservation license plates (White-tailed Deer, Largemouth Bass, Camping, Diamondback Rattlesnake, and Lucifer Hummingbird), thirty-three Texas game stamps, and illustrated posters for the Texas Wildlife Expo, Great Texas Birding Classic, Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center, Texas Game Warden Memorial, and Texas State Railroad. Guzman was the Tejano Conjunto Festival en San Antonio poster winner, 1992, 1995, 2002 and the California Upland Game Bird Stamp Art Contest winner, Sacramento, California, 2012.
Though Guzman was born in Martinez, California, he has always considered himself a Texan. “Three months before I was born, my family left Doss, Texas, as my dad was a cowboy looking for work in California,” he says. “Soon after I was born, we returned to Doss. I should have been born in Fredericksburg. We moved to San Antonio when I was in first grade.” Guzman currently lives and works in San Antonio and is honored to be selected as the 2021 Texas Book Festival poster artist. To learn more about Clemente, his love and respect for the natural world that he paints, and the poster image, check out this TBF interview with Clemente Guzman. Read the full press release here.
As always, we will have Festival shirts and posters for sale during the Texas Book Festival Weekend, on October 30-31. Please fill out the Festival poster form, and shirts and posters will be shipped in October. Please contact bookfest@texasbookfestival.org.
