Biography

Quentin Blake was born in the suburbs of London in 1932 and has been drawing ever since he can remember.
 

He went to Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, and, after a break for two years of National Service, to Downing College, Cambridge where he studied English. He went on to do a postgraduate teaching diploma at the University of London, followed by life-classes at Chelsea Art School, but otherwise received no formal art training.  His first drawings were published in Punch while he was 16 and still at school.

He has always made his living as an illustrator, as well as teaching for over twenty years at the Royal College of Art, where he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986. 

 

He has illustrated, to date, more than 500 titles, but is best known for his collaboration with writers such as Russell Hoban, Joan Aiken, Michael Rosen, John Yeoman and, most famously, Roald Dahl.  His work includes illustrations for classic books for adults, and he has also created much-loved characters of his own, such as Mister Magnolia and Mrs Armitage.  Six of his picture books have been animated for the BBC’s award-winning series Quentin Blake's Box of Treasures (2023-24).  Global sales of his books have topped 45 million.

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; and he is the founder of Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the UK’s flagship centre for the artform, which opened in Clerkenwell in June 2026. 

 

He supports numerous charities, the most prominent among them being the Quentin Blake Centre, Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity (of which he is co-president), and Survival International. He is a long-standing supporter of Farms for City Children and Shelter.

 

In the last 20 years he has created more than 400 drawings for hospitals, prisons and public spaces in the UK and France.  His landmark exhibition in 2020 at Hastings Contemporary, We Live in Worrying Times featured a 30-foot mural which he completed on site in under two days.  He regularly continues to bring new work to exhibitions at Bankside Gallery and The Sherborne, Dorset.

In 1999 he was appointed the first ever Children's Laureate, a two-year tenure designed to raise the profile of children’s literature, while in the spring of 2002 he was named ‘Illustrator of the Year’ in the Hans Christian Andersen Awards.  In 2014 he was admitted to the Legion d'Honneur, was created CBE (2005), and is an RDI (Royal Designer for Industry).  He received a knighthood for 'services to illustration' in the New Year's Honours for 2013, and was appointed 'Companion of Honour' (CH) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List in 2022.  Receiving this, Quentin commented: 'There are instructions that go with the award and these explain that this is not only an acknowledgment of what you have done so far, but - and this is the interesting part - you have to go on and do more'.

 

He lives in southwest London and still draws every day.