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Not For Art's Sake 

by Claudia Zeff, Creative Consultant to Quentin Blake

A new book, Not For Art’s Sake, celebrates Quentin’s imaginative and moving artworks for public spaces, hospitals, prisons and products. Editor Claudia Zeff tells us more and shares a few highlights.

A photograh of the cover of a book with a white background and black text which looks like handwriting in ink with the words "Quentin Blake Not for Art's Sake"

For most of Quentin’s life he has illustrated books, either written by himself or someone else, but in the last 20 years or so he has been commissioned to draw for other purposes.

The work in Not For Art's Sake is for a specific audience, site or occasion and has not been seen by the general public unless they happened to be, for example, at the Royal opening of St Pancras International or visiting a maternity hospital in France.

Some years ago Quentin asked me if I would act as his Creative Consultant so my role became one of intermediary taking care of the relationship between him and the client. He explained that an essential part of my role would be to say ‘no’ to requests that he didn’t have the time to do, or didn’t interest him. But I soon found that any drawing which was for a purpose ‘beyond the page’ was irresistible to Quentin and that he’d always want to say ‘yes’. He never seemed daunted by the most sensitive subject matter and felt keenly the privilege of being asked. The appeal of his work being seen in unexpected places and contexts was an adventure for him and the arrival of sophisticated digital printing made changes in size and scale possible.

This book is a celebration of these works and where they have taken Quentin:

"All the works shown in this book use art in their making. However, what I want to record are the places that circumstantial requirements have taken me to. To mention only three: I’m sure that I would not spontaneously have found myself making family drawings for people in prison, drawings to encourage young people recovering from anorexia, or to do a drawing suitable to wrap two sides of a five-story building. How fortunate can a working artist get?” - Quentin Blake
An illustration in black ink of a man standing face-on, holding up a portrait of himself in front of him

In 1999 Quentin was made the first Children’s Laureate, a prize given to a ‘children’s writer or illustrator to celebrate outstanding achievement in their field.’ It meant many more public appearances for him and he found that he was becoming famous beyond the world of children’s books and people started asking him to draw off the page…

The Royal Parks in London invited Quentin, and other artists and designers to donate a design for deckchairs:

"My version of what you might like to find on a deckchair was a sunbathing woman, but she was purple with green hair to remind you that she was fictional."
A photograph of a man in sunglasses reclining in a deckchair. A woman with green hair, purple skin and a yellow bikini is standing next to him. There is an empty deckchair next to them which has an illustration of the same woman printed on it.

Quentin has done sets of drawings for over a dozen hospitals in the UK and France. He’s proud of the fact that the work spans all stages of life, from birth to old age. The first series was for the Kershaw Ward for Adults in West London. He remembers the meeting he had with the Nightingale Project, a charity who put art into hospitals:

"It happened to be on my birthday. The question of age wasn’t entirely inappropriate, either, since being approximately the age of my prospective audience, I felt it gave me if not a qualification at least a sort of licence."
An illustration of a man holding a paintbrush and tin of paint, brushing colourful swirling patterns on a blank wall. A small dog lies at his feet.
An illustration of a man in vibrant orange watercolour standing against a dark green background. He is holding a large potted plant in one arm and a bunch of flowers and foliage in his other hand.

Quentin's most recent community project was a series on drawings for HM Prisons to hang in the visitors’ rooms where families meet with the prisoners:

"I started looking at family scenes and, more specifically, the relationship between children and their parents, especially in prison. The task immediately became a real pleasure for me."

By the time the drawings were officially unveiled at Brixton Prison in August 2024 the prints were already hanging in every prison in the UK.

An illustration of a family of two adults and a young person sitting and talking, in black ink and blue watercolour
An illustration in black ink and orange watercolour depicting a man lifting a young baby up above him. The baby is lifting its hands up in the air in delight. The baby's mother is watching and smiling.

When Quentin was teaching illustration at the Royal College of Art, he felt the need for a museum where his students could see what their forebears and contemporaries were doing; a centre for “the display and study and celebration of the art of illustration. Somewhere with ‘ILLUSTRATION’ above the door.”

"Illustration is, if you like, a vernacular; it’s a language that everybody understands. They may look at it and not think that they’re looking at art, but it’s having the effect on them of art. It’s a language that everybody can read, so to speak."
An illustration of an Engine House building with multi coloured flags attached to the roof and fireworks exploding in the sky above.

Claudia Zeff is Creative Consultant to Quentin Blake and Vice-Chair of Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration.

Not For Art’s Sake is published by Quentin Blake, Distributed by Thames & Hudson and available in bookshops now.