Quentin Blake : Exhibitions : Past

Quentin Blake and Friends at Nunnington Hall

Britain's Leading Illustrators

1st July – 7th September 2008

Quentin Blake is joined by three of Britain’s leading illustrators - Michael Foreman, Peter Brookes and Emma Chichester Clark for an exhibition of 120 artworks demonstrating the narrative and fantastical fun of their artistic range.

Nunnington Hall is situated in the beautiful Yorkshire Dales. It is an ancient manor house, dating from the 1680s and is now owned by the National Trust. The exhibition has been organised by Chris Beetles.

'The idea for the series was practical, but I suppose it wouldn't have happened if it hadn't had behind it the belief that, though there may be times when your life seems colourless, it is still possible for it to blossom in unique and colourful ways'.

Quentin Blake: Hand-Tinted
South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre
1 Nightingale Place London SW10 9NG
Until 30 June 2008. Open Monday to Friday 9.00am
to 6.00pm, and other times by appointment.

During the last two years, Quentin Blake has decorated the walls of several hospitals and health centres with specially commissioned drawings. The first set was made for Kershaw Ward at South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre. This new exhibition shows drawings created for the Woodland Centre, the mental health centre for older adults at Hillingdon Hospital. The aim of both the Kershaw and Hillingdon projects is to create a more healing environment in hospitals. The work has now been installed in the reception area and main corridors, which have recently been refurbished.

Quentin Blake at the Institut Français

Quentin Blake at Kelvingrove

Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow

until 13th January 2008

Quentin Blake showed a collection from his personal archive at Kelvingrove Gallery, thanks to support from KPMG Scotland.

This was the first time that the works of Quentin Blake had been shown in Glasgow, and the exhibition included some of his favourite illustrations as well as several newly created works.
Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery

Frabjous Beasts on tour 2007

Frabjous Beasts was a highly successful exhibition curated by Quentin Blake at the Holburne Museum in Bath in 2006. Well-loved (and feared) monsters from contemporary children’s books including Axel Scheffler’s Gruffalo and Raymond Briggs’ Fungus met Quentin’s own creations invented especially for the exhibition. Frabjous Beasts toured the UK visiting the following galleries:

7 July to 18 August in Boston at the Haven Art Gallery, 2, South Square, Boston, Lincolnshire, PE21 6HU

25 August to 7 October in Kircaldy at the Kircaldy Museum and Art Gallery, War Memorial Gardens, Kircaldy, Fife, KY1 1YG

20 October to 24 November in Lymington at the St Barbe Museum and Art Gallery, New Street, Lymington, Hampshire, SO41 9BH

Quentin Blake exhibition at the Italian Cultural Institute, London
Emanuele Luzzati and Quentin Blake: Theatres of the Imagination

28 March until 4 May 2007

This exhibition put Quentin's work alongside that of the Italian illustrator Emanuele Luzzati who illustrated books by authors such as Italo Calvino and the Grimm Brothers.
ICI website

Quentin Blake, parrots and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts

Quentin Blake is well known as a parrot fan and supporter. Last year he opened the exhibition The Parrot in Art:From Dürer to Elizabeth Butterworth at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham. The exhibition featured loans from collections such as the National Gallery, Tate Britain, the Royal Collection and a work by Quentin himself Cockatoos at Christmas. The exhibition ran until 29 April 2007.

Quentin Blake with Barber Institute Director Richard Verdi and fellow parrot artist Elizabeth Butterworth
Edward Moss Photography

Quentin Blake: The Theatre of the Page
The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
Amherst, USA
November 7, 2006 - March 11, 2007
Quentin’s first major exhibition in the USA explored many aspects of his style, process, and collaborations: from the high comedy of Mr. Magnolia and the Roald Dahl books, to the reflective, atmospheric mood that prevails in The Green Ship and Michael Rosen’s Sad Book. Reflecting Blake’s many artistic influences, works by Honoré Daumier, George Cruickshank, and Pablo Picasso were also included.

This exhibition was generously underwritten by the Triad Foundation.

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture book Art

Quentin Blake et les Demoiselles des bords de Seine
Musée du Petit Palais, Paris
December 2005-February 2006
The Petit Palais in the Champs Elysées was built for the International Exhibition of 1900 and established in 1902 as the Museum of Fine Art of the City of Paris. After several years of work the building is now restored to its original state with the addition of a new lecture theatre, café, study and studios.

The Petit Palais reopens to the public on December 10th, and to help celebrate the occasion, the world-famous British illustrator and author Quentin Blake has been given carte blanche to explore its reserve collection of paintings, and wonderful print collection, and to curate an exhibition that will delight visitors of all ages. “Quentin Blake et les Demoiselles de Bord de Seine” is his choice of about fifty works from the 19th century on the theme of women; the works are hung on walls which are animated by Blake’s large-scale lively drawings (as in his 2001 exhibition “Tell Me A Picture” at the National Gallery, where as here, he collaborated with Ghislaine Kenyon). Hung in the Petit Palais’ impressive exhibition spaces, the works are arranged in groups so that the visitor meets women in close-up, at work, in the country and amongst their families. These include paintings by familiar names such as Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Maurice Denis and Jacques-Emile Blanche; pastels by Degas, Tissot and Forain; drawings by Constantin Guys; and prints by Vuillard, Steinlen and Toulouse Lautrec – as well as interesting surprises by lesser-known masters.

A book with drawings by Quentin Blake which catalogues and illustrates all the works on show is published by Gallimard in collaboration with Paris-musées

Quentin Blake: Sixty New Drawings
Kershaw Ward
December 2006-January 2007
Quentin Blake’s most recent work was shown in an exhibition called Quentin Blake: Sixty New Drawings, presented by the Nightingale Project at South Kensington and Chelsea Mental Health Centre. The work was made especially for the ward for older adults at the Centre – the first time Quentin has created work especially for a hospital ward.

Having created sixteen delightful pictures for the corridors and public rooms of Kershaw Ward (see previous story below), Quentin went on to create pictures for each of the nineteen patients’ bedrooms. However he got carried away on a wave of inspiration and made over sixty drawings.

Quentin wrote that he found himself following two main paths with these drawings – one was a series of far-fetched decorative birds, the other a set of more subdued images of old and young people together.