Quentin Blake’s rarely seen nude pictures on display in London

FROM the BFG to Matilda, he’s created the iconic images of childhood. Now Quentin Blake’s little-known nude drawings are going on display.

FROM the spindly BFG to the scratchy-haired Twits, for many, Quentin Blake’s illustrations are what childhood looks like.

Now an exhibition of the famous artist’s rare nude pictures will go on display with some of them seen in public for the first time.

The House of Illustration show, based in London’s King’s Cross, contains 18 original pencil drawings from the 1970s showing women in various states with Cupid’s arrow.

They’ve been chosen by Blake himself, now 85, from his personal archive of more than 35,000 works held in a permanent Quentin Blake Gallery at the House of Illustration.

Quentin Blake’s never seen nude pictures are on display in London for a Valentine’s Day exhibition. Picture: House of Illustration

Cupid’s arrow features in the Valentine’s Day exhibition. Picture: House of Illustration

While retaining his particular style, the sketches are very different to the pictures we are used to seeing from Blake. Picture: House of Illustration

The UK artist is most famous for his long-time collaboration with beloved children’s author Roald Dahl, providing the images for classics such as Matilda, The Witches and James And The Giant Peach.

He has continued to work as an illustrator and curator, designing shows at the UK National Gallery, the British Library and the Musée du Petit Palais in Paris, as well as taking on large-scale murals in hospitals. He has also collaborated with Little Britain’s David Walliams on a series of children’s books including The Boy In The Dress.

The artist describes his distinctive style as a “freewheeling sort of drawing that looks as though it is done on the spur of the moment”. But each picture requires preparation and planning beginning with the text itself and the particular feeling he wants to convey.

“Normally I begin with the most difficult piece of the drawing — some particular facial expression, some particular gesture or stance — so that if I get that wrong, I don’t have to repeat the whole of the drawing,” he said.

“Consequently, it’s not impossible for me to find myself at the end of a session of work surrounded by expensive sheets of watercolour paper with a small face bearing not quite the right expression in the middle of each.”

Blake starts with the most difficult part of the picture such as the facial expression. Picture: House of Illustration

Another of the nudes in the exhibit. Picture: House of Illustration

Children’s book ‘The Boy In The Dress’ by David Walliams, illustrated by Quentin Blake.

Quentin Blake, 85, has illustrated more than 250 children’s books. Picture: AFP

Of the pictures on display, Blake said: “Technically speaking we have to say that these women are in the nude, but in fact they have never had any clothes. Each of them is an outline, an economical way to depict the shapes and gestures that tell us what they are feeling.”

House of Illustration curator Olivia Ahmad said: “Cupid is the classical god of love, always armed with a bow and arrow, and anyone struck by this arrow is filled with an uncontrollable desire. Quentin Blake plays with this idea in this series of works. In his drawings we have to imagine that Cupid is ‘offstage’, outside of the frame of the picture, shooting arrows towards unsuspecting people.

“Some of them rush out of the firing line (perhaps they’ve been in love before and things haven’t gone well), others willingly throw themselves into its path. Some that have been hit look forlorn, some are stunned and others are joyful. These figures are symbolic of the different ways we all experience love — from the pain of rejection to the excitement of a new romance.”

The exhibition runs until April 29. A limited edition book of 18 previously unpublished Quentin Blake drawings will be available at House of Illustration.

Originally published as Quentin Blake’s rarely seen nude pictures on display in London