Quentin Blake biography by Ghislaine Kenyon

Friday 11th March 2016


 

An unparalleled insight into an iconic illustrator, Quentin Blake In the Theatre of the Imagination (published 10 March 2016) forms a fitting tribute to Quentin Blake’s extraordinary development as an artist and a testimony to his enduring legacy.Along with his legendary collaboration with Roald Dahl, the text describes his early work for publications such as Punch and The Spectator, and his illustrations for adult as well as children’s books. But equally important are his lesser-known works for schools, hospitals, charities and individuals, many of them unpublished and seen here for the first time. Containing interviews with many people who haven’t spoken about him before, the book also provides a fascinating profile of the artist at work: the daily routine in his London studio, his materials and working processes, his love of things that fly or are otherwise weightless, and his deep engagement with France and all things French.

Ghislaine Kenyon has known Quentin Blake since 1998. She has observed how his take on life informs his memorable illustrations and how his art in turn has informed his life – alife which is fully lived in public and contained in private. Here, with exceptional insight into lake’s oeuvre, and accompanied by over two hundred of his illustrations and photographs, Kenyon presents a different kind of life-writing, starting from a critical view of the artist’s work.

 

Links:

Read a review by Frances Wilson (published in The Guardian, 3 March)

Buy the Book (direct from Bloomsbury's online shop)