Cockatoos: Celebrate Quentin Blake’s 90th Birthday

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Learning to read is hard for many, many children. They spend their early years being told what they can and can’t do, and must fit in with an adult’s timeframe. During the 1960s, Blake taught English at the Lycée Français de Londres which cemented his long association with France and culminated in the award of the Legion of Honour. He taught at the Royal College of Art for over twenty years, where he was head of the Illustration department from 1978 to 1986. One after another they escaped through a broken pane of glass they had discovered in a corner of the conservatory. Chelsea Arts Club secretary signs off with 'lunatic' plea". London Evening Standard. 17 January 2013 . Retrieved 15 February 2017. a b (Greenaway Winner 1980). Living Archive: Celebrating the Carnegie and Greenaway Winners. CILIP. Retrieved 15 July 2012.

By 2006, Blake had illustrated 323 books, of which he had written 35 and Dahl had written 18. [14] [a] To date, Blake has illustrated two of David Walliams' books and has illustrated Folio Society Limited Editions such as Don Quixote, Candide and 50 Fables of La Fontaine. The first book that Blake illustrated was The Wonderful Button by Evan Hunter, published by Abelard-Schuman in 1961. [12] In his subsequent career, he gained a reputation as a loyal, reliable and humorous illustrator of more than 300 children's books, including some written by Joan Aiken, Elizabeth Bowen, Sylvia Plath, Roald Dahl, Nils-Olof Franzén, William Steig, and Dr. Seuss. He illustrated the first Seuss book that Seuss did not illustrate himself, Great Day for Up! (1974). [13] His book Laureate's Progress in 2002, recorded many of his activities and the illustrations he produced during his two-year tenure. Quentin Blake was created CBE in 2005, is an RDI and has numerous honorary degrees from universities throughout the UK.Blake won the Kurt Maschler Award, or the Emil, for All Join In (Jonathan Cape, 1990), which he wrote and illustrated. The award from Maschler Publications and Booktrust annually recognised one British "work of imagination for children, in which text and illustration are integrated so that each enhances and balances the other." [29] Blake was educated at Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School. His English teacher, JH 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 (1953-6), 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.

Blake is the Founding Trustee of House of Illustration, a centre in London for exhibitions, educational events and activities related to the art of illustration. He was also the subject of the first exhibition at this venue, entitled Inside Stories", which opened in July 2014. In August 2020, it was announced that the centre will be relocating to the 18th century Engine House at New River Head in the Clerkenwell area of London, and will be renamed the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. [22]

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The Box of Delights; or, When the Wolves Were Running" John Masefield, Illustrated by Quentin Blake (Farshore, 2014) The Hans Christian Andersen Awards, 1956–2002. IBBY. Gyldendal. 2002. Hosted by Austrian Literature Online ( literature.at). Retrieved 2013-07-23. Quentin has received many awards for his books including the Kate Greenaway Medal, the Children's Book Award, the Emil/Kurt Maschler Award, the Bologna Regazzi Prize and the 2002 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, which is the highest international recognition given to creators of children's books. He is one of the best-known and best-loved illustrators of our time, and his books with a wide range of authors have been treasured by generations of children throughout the world. In 2013 he was knighted for services to illustration. Quentin lives in London.