Quentin Blake has achieved pre-eminence both with his own picture books and in collaboration with other writers including Roald Dahl and John Yeoman. He has created over 200 books and won many accolades. In 1988, he was awarded the OBE. In 1999, he became the first Children's Laureate.
THE BASICS
Born: Sidcup, Kent, December 16th 1932
Jobs: Teacher, Artist, Author
Lives: Earl's Court, London
First Book as author and artist: Patrick, 1968
THE BOOKS
When critics discuss Quentin Blake's work, they tend to use words like "incomparable", "inimitable", "unmistakable", "unbeatable". Joanna Carey likens his style to "the familiar handwriting of a friend (which) all children find easy to recognise". Quentin had no formal art training, but from an early age drew incessantly. His work was published in Punch when he was only sixteen and still at school. During his two years of national service, he illustrated a reading primer for soldiers. In the 1950s, a career in art offered little job security so Quentin studied English at Downing College, Cambridge and Education at London University. After graduating, Quentin continued to work as an illustrator, with commissions from Punch and The Spectator. He took Life classes at the Chelsea Art School. His artistic influences included Ronald Searle, the French artist Daumier and Andre Francois, the cartoonist.
In 1960, Quentin illustrated his first children's book - A Drink of Water by John Yeoman. His first book as author and artist was Patrick, published in 1968. In 1965, he joined the teaching staff at the Royal College of Art. He took over as head of the Illustration Department in 1978 and continued in the post until 1986, when he decided to give more time to his own illustration work.
Quentin has always been a popular and much sought-after collaborator. In
1976, he began working with Roald Dahl. It is now impossible to think of
Roald Dahl's writing without imagining Blake's complementary artwork. Quentin has also formed strong partnerships with Joan Aiken, Russell Hoban, Michael Rosen and John Yeoman. Quentin's work is not only admired by readers - young and old - and critics, but by his peers. In 1990, when The Observer asked children's book illustrators to choose their favourite book illustrator, they chose Quentin Blake.
In 1981, Quentin was elected Royal Designer to Industry. In 1988, he was awarded the OBE for services to children's literature and made a visiting professor and senior fellow of the RCA. In 1999, he became the first Children's Laureate.
Quentin lives and works in London, Hastings and the South-West of France.
Joanna Carey of The Guardian has described Quentin's London studio with wonderful accuracy:
"The glow from the light box at which he works gives Blake... the air of a magician. On the desk beside him are his watercolours - moist, bite-sized chunks of colour, served up on little trays like rare exotic spices and meticulously labelled in the artist's inimitable handwriting. Alongside... brushes, pens, pencils and a whole armoury of nibs, are laid out with a precision that's quite at odds with the cheerful chaos you find in his drawings. But the rest of the room lives up to expectations - a huge table is covered by piles and piles of books, slithering heaps of parcels, packets and portfolios, while over by the wall the curved arm of a guillotine can be seen waving - or drowning - in a sea of drawing paper."
WHAT HE SAYS...
"I never draw from life. You can either draw someone carrying a suitcase from life or from sketchbooks, or, like me, you can imagine what it feels like... it's like acting and I get to play all the parts."
"My main collaboration is not with the author, but the text."
"Some illustrators are really only happy when they are working on a book which they have entirely invented themselves; but I enjoy working with other people's words and ideas as much as my own. It's like being given a ticket to visit someone else's imagination, and you never quite know what you will find there."
"I decided to try a children's book because I hoped they'd like the jokes."
"The pictures used to come first and they still do, in a sense. But I used to have to draw them before I could start the story. That's not true now. Now they come in my head and I can write from that."
"I like all the characters (I draw) and I feel close to all of them. I try to imagine how it would be to be like them as I'm drawing their pictures."
"There (is) something magical about (Roald Dahl's books). I like them because although the characters are very unreal, they're strangely true to life as well. For example, the awful people (are) much more horrible than real people - yet rather like them too!"
"If all the preparatory moves are thought of as part of the drawing process perhaps I don't draw very quickly, even though there must be many mistakes or I shouldn't need such a large wastepaper basket. Speed is only evident, I think, in the execution of the final drawings. I make use of a light box... A rough goes on first and on top of that a sheet of watercolour paper. What follows isn't tracing, in fact it's important not to be able to see the rough drawing underneath too well; its function is to show where everything goes, and on that basis I do a spontaneous new drawing. And here I do draw quickly, in short bursts of concentration with pauses for reflection and looking out of the window. I quite often begin with drawing the most difficult
and important expression; so it's not uncommon for me to discover myself quite soon surrounded by several sheets of watercolour paper with one small unsuccessful face in the middle of each."
WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT QUENTIN BLAKE...
"His work effortlessly crosses all barriers of age, gender and sophistication, swinging high in the realms of flamboyant humour and absurdity, and splashing seductively in reflective pools of poetry and romance."
Joanna Carey, The Guardian
"There's no-one to touch him. He has a magic gift of drawing a character on the page exactly as you imagined it." Roald Dahl
"He makes it all look so easy and yet his work is so full of joie de vivre. He makes it look enjoyable and never labours a point." Raymond Briggs
"His style is so alive that you feel every line is electric." Emma Chichester Clark
"He possesses some of the same qualities as Edward Ardizzone. His drawings are even more free with enormous vitality and movement." Helen Oxenbury
"The king of us all is Quentin Blake for his use of colour and the sheer exuberance of his drawing." Jill Murphy
"Blake is no less the creative artist in those books that he shares with an author. Even when the writer has a name as formidable as Roald Dahl, Blake, far from being overawed, can lift the book onto an altogether higher plane by an interpretation that uncovers hidden subtleties in the story"
Twentieth Century Children's Writers
"Dahl and Blake are... the Lennon and McCartney of children's literature."
Nursery World
"Anything he's done is worth giving to your children." Parents
"Blake is the supreme collaborator for writers because he is so literary. Words really excite him."
The Independent
"For all the apparent simplicity of his images and storytelling, there's a hugely complex mind at work behind it all, sifting through a universe of ideas until it all comes out just right." Publishing News
"Blake's picture books do a great line in eccentric adults with a childish sense of fun." Sunday Times
"It would be a pretty dull classroom or children's library that didn't have lots of books by Quentin Blake on its shelves... Blake's books will help create readers because they are high quality literature - brimming with humanity and joy."
Prue Goodwin, Reading & Language Centre, Reading University
"The split-second timing of... dramatic moments, combining spontaneity and precision, is a hallmark of Blake's extraordinary talent." The Guardian
"He combines a strong humour with a kindly eye. Even potentially threatening figures, such as the BFG... are ultimately reassuring, never frightening." Jump
"Charming and ludicrous."
The Bookseller on The Do-it-Yourself House That Jack Built
"A work of genius."
The Independent on The Do-it-Yourself House That Jack Built
"A brilliant book, brilliantly illustrated, which defies anyone to keep a straight face." Books For Keeps on The Family Album
"Words and pictures complement each other perfectly."
Books For Keeps on Mr Nodd's Ark
"A substantial, well-attended nonsensical gathering with some unexpected arrivals - Jane Austen, for example - vigorously illustrated by Blake."
The Guardian on The Puffin Book of Nonsense Stories
"Blake is not just a consummate artist... but a writer and anthologist of wide literary experience."
Books For Keeps on The Puffin Book of Nonsense Stories
"Blake, as ever, never puts a finger or a foot wrong."
Charles Causley, TES on The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse
"A delight for any age."
Sunday Times on The Puffin Book of Nonsense Verse
AWARDS
Child Study Association of America's Children's Books of the Year 1969, 1974, 1985, 1986
IBBY/Hans Christian Andersen honour book 1976 & 1982
New York Times Best Illustrated Book of the Year 1976
Royal Designer for Industry, 1980
Kate Greenaway Medal commendation 1980
Kate Greenaway Medal commendation 1981 for Mister Magnolia
Federation of Children's Book Groups' Children's Book Award 1981 & 1982
Runner-up for Kurt Maschler Award 1982, 1984, 1985, 1986
Silver Brush Award 1986
OBE, 1988
Kurt Maschler Award 1990 for All Join In
Bologna Ragazzi Prize for Clown
Children's Laureate, 1999
