Drawing Europe Together

Award-winning children’s book illustrator Axel Scheffler, and Markus Weber, children’s book publisher at Moritz Verlag, came up with the idea to ask illustrators to create a ‘drawing for Europe’. Whether they wanted to draw something about the story of Europe, the European Union or anything else on the subject, was left entirely up to them.

The initial set of pictures were first shown during the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2017, followed by the 'Drawing (for) Europe' exhibition at the Institut français in London in April/May 2018 – to which many UK illustrators including Quentin Blake and Chris Riddell were asked to contribute. The exhibition was highly acclaimed by the press and public alike. Many of the British-based children’s book illustrators, not surprisingly, chose to comment visually on Brexit.

Scheffler’s long-term publisher, Pan Macmillan, then decided to create a book – Drawing Europe Together, Forty-five Illustrators, One Europe – and invited even more illustrators to contribute. In addition, Macmillan asked all the artists to write a few words to explain the thoughts behind their drawings. The 45 illustrations were exhibited together for the first time at the launch of the book at Waterstones Piccadilly, London, in November 2018. In partnership with Axel Scheffler, Pan Macmillan and the European Commission, we are now able to tour these illustrations around the UK, bringing these often touching and thought-provoking artworks to a wider audience.