This new exhibition has been selected by the celebrated children's author and illustrator, Quentin Blake, first incumbent of the post of Children's Laureate.

Many of the artists included in the show are household names (Quentin Blake himself, Raymond Briggs, Tony Ross and John Burningham); others represent new and varied ways of approaching book illustration, such as the use of integrated TV and photographic collages by Lauren Child, the innovative layouts of Sara Fanelli using experimental type, handlettering and collage, and the sly but immaculate work of Posy Simmonds, which marries formidable powers of social observation with cunning text.

Charlotte Voake: The Best of Aesop's Fables
retold by Margaret Clark, first published in Britain by Walker Books, 1990,
© Charlotte Voake

Much of the work selected for the exhibition deals with subjects not often considered the stuff of children's books. Michael Foreman's War Game, for example, which records the artist’s experiences of growing up in Suffolk during the Second World War, or When the Wind Blows by Raymond Briggs, a visual parable against nuclear war, which is all the more powerful for being in the form of a strip cartoon.

Tony Ross: I Want My Potty
first published in Britain by Andersen Press, 1986,
© Tony Ross

Other work is included which demonstrates the brilliance of contemporary draughtsmanship: Quentin Blake’s exuberant illustrations to Cockatoos; Stephen Biesty’s phenomenal cross-section drawings of warships, tanks and space shuttles; Angela Barrett - a latter-day pre-Raphaelite - focusing with a fine black pen on body parts and sexual goings-on; Patrick Benson, a sharp-eyed naturalist with a feeling for flight, feathers and strange birds.

The UK has a celebrated history of innovative book design and illustration. The works of an earlier generation of illustrators, such as John Tenniel, Beatrix Potter, E. H. Shepherd and Edward Ardizzone, are known and loved worldwide. For many the illustrations to Jemima Puddleduck, Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, and the Tim books were their first introduction to British culture. This exhibition shows how today’s illustrators reflect contemporary concerns with equal originality and force; and how their work incontestably establishes this as a second golden age for British illustration. The exhibition will show the work of each illustrator in considerable depth. In addition, the show will incorporate a small cinema showing the animated work of several artists: Raymond Briggs’ The Bear and Father Christmas; Michael Foreman’s War Game; Tony Ross’s Towser; Posy Simmond’s Fred. The exhibition is designed by Cotterell and Vermeulen (designers of Tate Britain’s Gillray exhibition). A fully-illustrated book accompanies the show, looking not only at the artists in the exhibition but giving a vivid account of children’s book illustration in the UK, from chapbooks to Janet Ahlberg’s Burglar Bill.

Quentin Blake: The Green Ship,
first published in Britain by Jonathan Cape, 1998,
© Quentin Blake

For information about the featured artists, examples of their work and dates and locations of the Magic Pencil exhibition please click here to visit the Magic Pencil website.