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. 20 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