About Quentin Blake
Quentin Blake was born in the suburbs of London in 1932 and has drawn ever since he can remember.
He has always made his living as an illustrator, having had his first drawing published in Punch when he was 16 and still at school. After National Service and Cambridge (he studied English under F R Leavis) he taught for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986. He continued to draw for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines over many years, while at the same time entering the world of children’s books with A Drink of Water by John Yeoman in 1960.
He is known for his collaboration with writers such as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen, John Yeoman and, most famously, Roald Dahl. He has also illustrated classic books, both for children and adults, including A Christmas Carol and Candide; and created much-loved characters of his own, such as Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage. Six of his picture books have been animated and brought to the small screen by Eagle Eye and the BBC, in ‘Quentin Blake’s Box of Treasures’ (2023-24).
In the 1990s and 2000s, Quentin Blake had an additional career as exhibition curator, curating shows in, among other places, the National Gallery, the British Library and the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris. His landmark exhibition in 2020 at Hastings Contemporary, ‘We Live in Worrying Times’ featured a 30-foot mural titled ‘The Taxi Driver’ which he completed on site in under two days.
Additionally, In the last 20 years he has made larger-scale work for hospitals and healthcare settings in the UK and France where his work can be seen in wards and public spaces, including a scheme for the whole of a new maternity hospital in Angers, France, which opened in 2011.
Global sales of his books have topped 45 million and have won numerous prizes and awards; including the Whitbread Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award and the international Bologna Ragazzi Prize. He won the 2002 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the highest international recognition given to creators of children’s booksIn 1999 he was appointed the first ever Children’s Laureate, a post designed to raise the profile of children’s literature. He was created CBE in 2005, is an RDI and has numerous honorary degrees from universities throughout the UK. He received a knighthood for ‘services to illustration’ in the New Year’s Honours for 2013; in 2014 he was admitted to the Legion d’Honneur, and was appointed ‘Companion of Honour’ in the late Queen’s Birthday Honours List in 2022.
He lives in southwest London.
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