Quentin Blake: 200 Drawings at Auction to Benefit House of Illustration
Left to right: Quentin Blake’s “Sunshine Traveller’s #1,” 2020, pen, ink, watercolor paper, signed. Estimate £700-1,000; Quentin Blake’s “Birds as people #6,” watercolor pencil, watercolor paper, signed. Estimate £500-800; Quentin Blake’s “The Dancing Frog,” 2019, pen, ink, watercolor paper, signed. Estimate £500-800
London — Christie’s Classic Week presents Quentin Blake: 200 Drawings, open for browsing from 25 November and bidding from 2 to 16 December. With estimates ranging from £100 to £2,000, the online auction is the latest collection of works offered directly from the artist’s studio, sold to benefit House of Illustration, the UK’s only gallery and education space dedicated to illustration and graphics. Proceeds from the sale will support the charity’s ongoing projects, which include the redevelopment of New River Head in London into the renamed Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, the world’s largest public arts space dedicated to illustration. Set to open in 2022, the centre will be a new cultural landmark for the UK that will become a permanent home for the archive of the organisation’s founder, Sir Quentin Blake, with selections from his archive of more than 40,000 works on permanent display.
Quentin Blake said of 200 Drawings: “There are very few days of the year on which I don’t produce drawings; in addition to originals for publication, there are alternative versions, sequences of drawings exploring themes that appeal to me, experiments with unfamiliar implements and sometimes a drawing simply because I feel the need to. Christie’s auction means for me, delightfully, that all kinds of people actually get to take these drawings home to look at and that is a pleasure enormously enhanced for me by the knowledge that their money contributes to the development of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration, which, when it opens 2022, is going to be an extraordinary new cultural destination.”
Following the success of Quentin Blake: Not in Books in 2019, 200 Drawings will showcase the wide variety of work undertaken by Sir Quentin in recent years, from drawings for publications to designs for public artwork and large-scale works for installation.
Highlights of the sale can be viewed here. Lots are offered without reserve, with the sale open for browsing from 25 November and bidding from 2 to 16 December.
