Quentin Blake

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Quentin Blake bigraphy, stories - Illustrator

Quentin Blake : biography

16 December 1932 –

Sir Quentin Saxby Blake, CBE, FCSD, RDI (born 16 December 1932) is an English cartoonist, illustrator and children’s writer. He may be known best for illustrating books written by Roald Dahl.

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Career

Blake illustrated The Wonderful Button by Evan Hunter, published by Abelard-Schuman in 1961. (first edition). Library of Congress Catalog. Retrieved 2012-08-27.

Blake gained a reputation as a reliable and humorous illustrator of more than 300 children’s books, including some written by Joan Aiken, Elizabeth Bowen, Roald Dahl, Nils-Olof Franzén, William Steig, and Dr. Seuss —the first Seuss book that "Seuss" did not illustrate himself, Great Day for Up! (1974).

As of 2006, Blake is the author or illustrator of 323 books of which he wrote 35 himself and Dahl wrote 18. He recently illustrated David Walliams’s first and second books, The Boy in the Dress and Mr Stink.

Honours and awards

Blake was the inaugural British Children’s Laureate (1999–2001) and he received the biennial Hans Christian Andersen Award from the International Board on Books for Young People for his career contribution to children’s literature in 2002. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2005 New Year Honours for his services to children’s literature. In France he was made a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2002 and elevated to Officer in 2007. – website of Gallimard Jeunesse

For Mister Magnolia, which he also wrote, Blake won the 1980 Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year’s best children’s book illustration by a British subject. For the 50th anniversary of the Medal (1955–2005), a panel of experts named it one of the top ten winning works, which composed the ballot for a public election of the nation’s favourite. He was also a highly commended runner up for The Wild Washerwomen: A new folk tale, by John Yeoman (1979), and a commended runner up for Clown (1995), which he wrote himself. He made the Greenaway shortlist for Zagazoo (1998), which he wrote, and for Sad Book (2004) by Michael Rosen.

Blake was in 2011.

He was awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award in November 2012.http://www.thebookseller.com/news/blake-wins-eleanor-farjeon-award.html This is an annual award given for outstanding commitment and contribution to the world of British children’s books.

Blake was knighted in the 2013 New Year Honours for his services to illustration.

Other activities

In the 1970s Blake was an occasional presenter of the BBC children’s story-telling programme Jackanory, when he would illustrate the stories on a canvas as he was telling them.

In 1993 he designed the five British Christmas issue postage stamps featuring episodes from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Quentin Blake is patron of the Blake Society, Downing College’s arts and humanities society. He is also a patron of "The Big Draw". thebigdraw.org.uk. which aims to get people drawing throughout the United Kingdom, and of , a charity that puts art into hospitals. Since 2006 he has produced work for several hospitals and mental health centres in the London area, a children’s hospital (hopital Armand Trousseau) in Paris, and a maternity hospital in Angers, France. These projects are detailed in Blake’s 2012 book Quentin Blake: Beyond the Page, which describes how, in his seventies, his work has increasingly appeared outside the pages of books, in public places such as hospitals, theatre foyers, galleries and museums..

In 2007 he designed a huge mural on fabric, suspended over and thus disguising a ramshackle building immediately opposite an entrance to St Pancras railway station. The rendering of an "imaginary welcoming committee" greets passengers arriving on the Eurostar high-speed railway.. Richard Osley. The Independent 21 October 2007.

Blake is also the designer of ‘Ben’, the ‘logo’ of the shop chain, Ben’s Cookies.

Quentin Blake is a supporter and Ambassador for the indigenous rights NGO, Survival International. In 2009, he said, "For me, Survival is important for two reasons; one is that I think it’s right that we should give help and support to people who are threatened by the rapacious industrial society we have created; and the other that, more generally, it gives an important signal about how we all ought to be looking after the world. Its message is the most fundamental of any charity I’m connected with.". Survival International

Education

Blake was born in 1932 in Sidcup, Kent, and was evacuated to the West Country during the war. He went to Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, where his English teacher, J H Walsh, influenced his ambition to become involved in literature. His first published drawing was for the satirical magazine Punch, at the age of 16. He read English Literature at Downing College, Cambridge from 1953 to 1956, received his postgraduate teaching diploma from the University of London, and later studied at the Chelsea School of Art. He gained another teaching diploma at the Institute of Education before working at the Royal College of Art for over twenty years; he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986.