Daily Constitutional editor Adam continues his Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London…
You can catch up with all 26 previous stops at the Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London blog here cartoonandcomicbooklondon.blogspot.co.uk.
Panel 27: The House of Illustration
During the school
Christmas holidays I finally managed to get along to The House of Illustration.
There! I just blurted
it out! There was no easy way of breaking the news to the Cartoon Museum that
I've been seeing other exhibitions behind its back.
(It's not you, Cartoon
Museum. It's me. I'm a shameless gadabout for illustrated matter.)
The House of
Illustration opened in July 2014 in the regenerated canal-side area behind
King's Cross Station. It was founded by Sir Quentin Blake and 2016 will see a permanent
Blake gallery added to the collection, opening in April. The theme of the first
show will be Quentin Blake's approach to magic and surrealism.
Sir Quentin was born
in Kent in 1932 and his first published work appeared in Punch when he was just
16. He studied art in London at both Chelsea and Camberwell and has illustrated
more than 300 books.
He is internationally
famed as the illustrator of Roald Dahl's books for children.
Such is the connection
between Dahl and the illustrator who brought his characters so vividly to
pictorial life that the mere mention of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
floods my mind's eye with Blake's work: those deliciously anarchic, scratchy lines, like a murder of
crows splatting into a bucket of broken umbrellas. I cannot remember a time when I was not familiar with his work and I'm delighted to say that he's a big part of my eight-year-old daughter's reading experience too.
At the opening of The House
of Illustration, Blake told The Independent, "Illustration is all around
us everywhere, but what I hope is that here you will stop and think about
it."
The current exhibition
certainly makes us do that – E.H Shepard: An Illustrator's War.
You are already
familiar with the work of EH Shepard: he illustrated Winnie The Pooh and (my
favourite) The Wind In the Willows…
Toad screams for
attention, of course, but just look at Ratty! One of the most stylish
Englishmen of them all, worthy of a GQ cover all his own.
The long summer days
of simply messing about in boats are in high contrast to Shepard's first-hand
experience of World War One.
Over 100 drawings are on display depicting scenes on the Western Front, cartoons and, most touchingly, letters home to his wife featuring tender illustrations.
Over 100 drawings are on display depicting scenes on the Western Front, cartoons and, most touchingly, letters home to his wife featuring tender illustrations.
Here's illustrator
& cartoonist Chris Riddell (the current Children's Laureate, a post once
held by Sir Quentin Blake) with a few words on the exhibition…
Running in tandem with
the Shephard exhibition is Lauren Child's Dolls' House in the South Gallery.
Child is the creator
of Charlie and Lola, the tales of young Charlie, the coolest most fantastic-est
big brother in the world ever ever ever and his little sister Lola who, by
Charlie's reckoning, is "Small and VERY funny." It's no lie.
In an earlier post in
this series I stated that you DON'T need to use a child as a beard to love cartoons
and the work of Lauren Child is a great case in point, vivid and life-affirming
stuff for all ages.
Child's dolls' house
is a 30-year work-in-progress and, as pointed out on The House of Illustration website,
the miniature construction techniques she learned as a child continue to inform
her illustration practice today.
Here she is
introducing her dolls' house on the BBC Radio4 programme Today… www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p036m97h)
Given that my context
in this series is cartoons in London, I completely must point you in the
direction of Lauren Child's Charlie and Lola: We Must Completely Go To London.
You only really need two
guide books to London. This is one of them, the other is M Sasek's This Is
London (click here for an earlier post on that great book).
Buy Charlie and
Lola: We Must Completely Go To London here: www.amazon.co.uk
There are only got a few
weeks left to check out these two exhibitions, E.H Shephard: An Illustrator's War closes on the 24th January while Lauren Child's Dolls' House runs to the
6th February.
From the 5th February,
the main gallery will host Comix Creatrix: 100 Women Making Comics. here's the
blurb…
Explore the world of
comics through original artwork by 100 women comic creators working across
genres and generations - from the 1800s to the present day; from observational
comedy to surreal fantasy, challenging biography to subversive dissent.
Featuring artists from
Marie Duval and Tove Jansson to Posy Simmonds, Audrey Niffenegger and Nina
Bunjevac, Comix Creatrix: 100 Women Making Comics is the UK's largest ever
exhibition of leading female comic artists.
You can book at the
House of Illustration website here: www.houseofillustration.org.uk
The House of Illustration…
2 Granary Square,
Kings Cross,
London N1C 4BH
2 Granary Square,
Kings Cross,
London N1C 4BH
I've collected the
entire series of A Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London so far together on its own
dedicated blog at cartoonandcomicbooklondon.blogspot.co.uk
Today, the 7th January
2016, I've re-posted a piece on the timing and the process of the series on the
first anniversary of Charlie Hebdo. You can catch up with it at
Coming soon on the Cartoon & Comic Book Tour of London: Wonder Woman & Gillray (sadly not in the same strip).
A London Walk costs £10 – £8 concession. To join a London Walk, simply meet your guide at the designated tube station at the appointed time. Details of all London Walks can be found at www.walks.com.
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