The Art of Resistance: Defending Academic Freedom since 1933 | Page 22
Quentin Blake?British
Girls and Dogs I
2013
Limited edition 30
Signed artist proof
Framed
Lithograph
55 x 75.5 cm
Guide Price £500
Quentin was born in the suburbs of London in
1932 and has drawn ever since he can
remember. He went to Chislehurst and Sidcup
Grammar School, followed by the National Service.
Then he studied English at Downing College,
Cambridge, going on to do a postgraduate
teaching diploma at the University of London,
followed by life-classes at Chelsea Art 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. His
first drawings were published in Punch while he
was 16 and still at school. He continued to draw
for Punch, The Spectator and other magazines
over many years, while at the same time
entering the world of children’s books with
A Drink of Water by John Yeoman in 1960.
His books have won numerous prizes and
awards, including the Whitbread Award, the
Kate Greenaway Medal, the Emil/Kurt Maschler
Award and the international Bologna Ragazzi
Prize. He won the 2002 Hans Christian
Andersen Award for Illustration, the highest
international recognition given to creators of
children’s books. In 2004 Quentin Blake was
awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres
by the French Government for services to
literature and in 2007 he was made Officer in
the same order. In 1999 he was appointed the
first ever Children’s Laureate, a post designed
to raise the profile of children’s literature.
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The Art of Resistance? Defending Academic Freedom
His book Laureate’s Progress (2002) recorded
many of his activities and the illustrations
he produced during his two-year tenure.
Quentin was created CBE in 2005, is an RDI
and has numerous honorary degrees from
universities throughout the UK. He received
a knighthood for ‘services to illustration’ in
the New Year’s Honours for 2013.
“
This is a lithograph, from a series of five produced in 2012 and exhibited
at Marlborough Fine Art Gallery on the theme of girls and dogs. Each
girl seems to be some kind of artist, and finds herself in a ruined
landscape. The dogs are unusually large, and it is perhaps open to
question whether they are threatening or protecting. The images relate
to no specific story, but perhaps suggest both reality and metaphor.
quentin blake
”
Lot 4