From The Twits to The Gruffalo and an angry bear in search of his hat\u2026 Quentin Blake, Cressida Cowell, Axel Sheffler, Lauren Child and more reveal how they bring children\u2019s books to life<\/p>\n
Spread across a sprawling 17th-century industrial complex in London\u2019s Clerkenwell, the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, which opens next month, is being billed as the largest institution of\u00a0its kind anywhere in the\u00a0world: a permanent national home for an art\u00a0form that shapes everything from children\u2019s books and political cartoons to animation, fashion, advertising and digital\u00a0culture. Part museum, part gallery and part creative laboratory, the centre represents an extraordinary attempt to drag illustration out of the margins and finally place it at the heart of British cultural life.<\/p>\n
Eventually the centre will become home to Blake\u2019s own enormous archive: 40,000 drawings created by one of the UK\u2019s best-known and most immediately recognisable artists. Now 93, Blake has spent three-quarters of a century bringing the words of some of our most beloved authors to life. Roald Dahl is the big one, of course \u2013 it\u2019s impossible to think of Dahl without seeing\u00a0Blake\u2019s energetic, dip-pen pictures \u2013 but the list\u00a0also includes Michael Rosen, John Yeoman, Sylvia Plath and Voltaire, as well as Blake\u2019s own books. In\u00a0other\u00a0words, it\u2019s difficult to find anyone with the same authority.<\/p>\n
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