Máximo. Honorary Prize.

Máximo San Juan Arranz was born in Membrilla de Castrejón, Burgos in 1933, but shortly afterwards his family moved to Valladolid.

EIn that town Máximo worked as a radio broadcaster and writer later to become the head of programming at Cadena Azul. In 1962 he left the radio to devote his time to drawing. After moving to Madrid, he began publishing the magazine Juventud, and until 1964 the newspaper Arriba. He also collaborated in the magazine Don José run by Mingote, Pueblo newspaper and magazines Mundo and La Codorniz.

In the mid seventies he colaborated in El Correo Catalan, La Vanguardia and the magazine Por Favor, created and directed by Vázquez Montalbán and Perich. He was commissioned a series of drawings for Diario Apócrifo that would later be published as a book. Other books he has published are: Historias impávidas, Éste país, Carta abierta a la censura, Animales Políticos, No a la OTAN y otros incordios, Hipótesis, El poder y viceversa.

In 1976 he joined the newspaper El País, and with a new lease of life he drew there for thirty years. Since 2008 he has published a daily cartoon in ABC. In these three decades, he has published in other magazines such as Interviú and El Cochinillo Feroz.

He has had several exhibitions, including a retrospective exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Seville, and has received several awards and distinctions, among them the Paleta Agromán (1965), the Mingote Prize (1981), the the Pro Human Rights Association Award (1985), Gonzalez Ruano Journalism Award (1988), the Villa de Madrid Humour (2005) and International Gat Perich Humour Award! (2008).

Máximo is a versatile creator, a philosopher who uses his drawing as a implement to dissect reality. His literary reflections on the human condition and his drawings have been published in various media forms.