I’m greeted at the Lowry by Roald Dahl’s grinning Enormous Crocodile, who looks a bit too happy to see me and the toddler in a pushchair watching his father snapping his arms open and shut while making crocodile noises. We are both delighted by this, and eager, it seems, to see this new Quentin Blake and Me exhibition, a collection of original illustrations by Britain’s best-known children’s book illustrator.
Now aged 92, Quentin Blake has been illustrating and writing books for more than 70 years and has hundreds of titles under his belt.
So many of us have grown up with Blake’s work, an important part of our formative years. His many books have seen him working with some of the greatest children’s authors including Dahl, Joan Aiken, John Yeoman, Elizabeth Bowen and Michael Rosen. He has also written books himself and animated versions of his work, bringing his storytelling to new generations.
The Lowry exhibition extends an invitation to consider what Blake and his work means to each of us. This makes perfect sense as every visitor is a child or has been at some stage, and each feels connected to their own special memories of these wonderful books.
This is an important point to understand about the practice of illustrating picture books. As a lecturer working with children’s book illustration students, I encourage them to channel and engage with their four-year-old self.
By revisiting this part of ourselves we can understand not only how to capture the right tone, but recognise what makes children laugh, or what intrigues them, the discoveries and places they would enjoy, and who and what they might be scared by. This is evident in all of Blake’s work, about which he once said: “It’s not about knowing about children, but [that] you be them.”
As Blake demonstrates, the picture book illustrator is not just making pictures of the text – an illustrator can bring everything vividly to life using their skills and imagination. I overheard a parent as she pondered Mr Magnolia and his one boot, saying: “He makes it look so easy”. And indeed Blake does.
There is a fluidity and immediacy to his illustrations that make them appear effortless; a rough draft is placed on a light box and Blake draws his final image using this as a guide. This process allows him to work with pen and ink as if drawing the picture for the first time, capturing the expressiveness of an initial idea.
He conjures scenarios on the page that are compelling – nothing is contrived, so it all feels authentic. Readers young and old will go on any journey that Blake wishes to take them because of his genuine warmth and humour, his delightful imagination captured in drawing and painting that is full of energy and charm. This is the magic of illustration.
The exhibition is just as joyful and playful as the work on display. Original illustrations from a range of Blake’s books that span his career are framed and exhibited low enough for children to be able to view them easily. Adults have to stoop a little, ensuring they are on the same level.
Early on in the exhibition some of the Mr Magnolia illustrations are squished into a little V-shaped corner, which made me think of reading a picture book as a child, sitting on the floor wedged between the wall and the side of my bed.
Blake’s books are so cleverly illustrated ensuring that even if you can’t read yet, you can still understand not only the narrative but all the little visual jokes and special surprises that he regularly delivers. Never talking down to children or over explaining things, these are books that help to cultivate a sophisticated and discerning young reader.
The characters of each of the books featured escape from the pages and charge around the walls of the exhibition, taking up every available space. Here the BFG (Big Friendly Giant) towers over children having their photograph taken, and there the fine feathered creatures from Up With Birds swing around the gallery ceiling along with their glorious balloons.
It is fascinating to see Blake’s development work in notebooks, early roughs of book spreads as well as thumbnail plans – all evidence of the hard work that goes in to creating his books.
There are opportunities for children to dress up with The Boy In The Dress, and peep-holes in a wall reveal Blake’s studio set-up. There are also activity sheets and prompts for children to write and draw their own stories. Materials are set up in front of the “Monsters” wall so that visitors can join in creating illustrations. I can’t resist and add my own.
This is a wonderful exhibition that reveals the power of imagination, inspiring creativity, activity and reading in little ones. And those who are no longer children can tap into a delightful sense of nostalgia and revisit distant days of carefree reading and the flamboyant adventures of Blakes’s beautifully drawn characters.
Quentin Blake And Me is on at The Lowry, Manchester until January 4 2026. Admission is free.
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Maria Stuart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
