Monday 3 July 2017

The Best Of All Possible Worlds: Quentin Blake And The Folio Society


To Cambridge to see this interesting exhibition from Sir Quentin Blake - one of Britain's best illustrators, and creator of the images of so many beloved children's books.


The exhibition is at the sleek, beautifully designed Heong Gallery space at Downing College, and is a collection of the work that Blake has illustrated specifically for the Folio Society.


The Folio Society was founded in 1947 and produces particularly well-crafted editions of the finest literature. The Society aims to create books which are beautiful objects in which typography, illustrations, paper, printing and bindings all complement each other to create a unique and harmonious object. The Folio Society have worked with a number of acclaimed authors and promote the art of illustration by using not just famous illustrators, but well known artists, and also talented fledgling illustrators. 


The illustrations in the exhibition are from Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (1995), Fables of La Fontaine (2013), and more recently Riddley Walker, published this year. All are executed in Blake's idiosyncratic scratchy line drawing, augmented with wet-in-wet watercolour technique. They bring a smile to the face, and memories of a younger self reading Mr Magnolia, Matilda and Aristide, - all filled with the exuberant illustrations of Quentin Blake.



















The Best Of All Possible Worlds: Quentin Blake And The Folio Society
until 8th October
The Heong Gallery
(At Downing College)
Regent Street
Cambridge
CB2 1DQ
www.dow.cam.ac.uk/contact