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Gilbert Collection
Spanning his fifty-year career, this show covers Quentin Blake's early drawings for Punch and The Spectator, his highly successful collaboration with Roald Dahl and other writers, and his own recent picture books. Rough designs, preliminary drawings and finished originals as well as the final publications will appeal to adults and children alike, providing a unique insight into the working methods of one of Britain's best-loved illustrators. Quentin Blake was born in 1932 and this exhibition, celebrating his distinguished career as an illustrator, has drawn on the Quentin Blake archive of several thousand original drawings to offer a unique insight into his working methods and demonstrate his special skill and appeal. The Gilbert Collection and the Quentin Blake Gallery of Illustration have collaborated in the presentation of this show.
Blake is perhaps best known for his 15-year-long collaboration with Roald Dahl and he has illustrated more than seventy children’s books. However his career has encompassed cartoons drawn for Punch as long ago as 1949 when he was still at school, illustrating a National Service educational booklet in 1951, creating covers and other drawings for magazines including The Spectator and illustrating or drawing the covers for adult books by such authors as George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh, as well as books in numerous other countries. In addition there are drawings for his own books from the first, Patrick published in 1968, to the most recent, Mrs Armitage - Queen of the Road.
No more entertaining exhibition could be found by parents for their children at half term and it would be hard to find a better way to cheer up an adult on a wet winter’s day. Elizabeth Grice in the Daily Telegraph observed: “Quentin Blake’s scruffy anarchic figures, with their rubbery limbs, banana smiles and dominant noses, are like the friends we always wished we had…there is simply no-one to touch him…the current retrospective is as fascinating for its insights into his ageless mental agility as for any cleverness of hand”. Sue Hubbard in The Independent pointed out that the short film accompanying the exhibition, “shows him at work…like some big child shut in his nursery painting on a rainy day with his huge tray of watercolours set out in front of him. His drawing is wonderfully free and playful, the colour bleeding with carefree abandon over the ink outlines to give a sense of movement and vitality”.
As Amanda McGregor wrote in West End Extra, “The humour and warmth of this prolific artist’s work makes it instantly appealing to both children and adults”. Visitors can have their books signed by Quentin Blake at the Gilbert Collection Shop on Saturday 14 February at 3.30 pm. On Thursdays in February and March there will be lunchtime talks at the Gilbert Collection on the exhibition. There will also be a series of five evening lectures Storylines: Aspects of Illustration and on Monday 15 March Quentin Blake himself will be giving a special lecture entitled ‘What an illustrator thinks about’. (see below for details) Quentin Blake is an artist who has given fifty years of pleasure to readers of all ages. In 1999 he was, appropriately, appointed the first Children’s Laureate and he has done probably more than anyone in this country to enhance the status of the illustrator. The Golden Jubilee of his career is justly celebrated in this delightful exhibition.
Lunchtime talks: Lecture series: Book-Signing: Quentin Blake lecture:
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