Quentin Blake, Born 1932
Illustrator and author of children’s books
Sir Quentin Saxby Blake is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. He taught at the Royal College of Art for twenty years, and from 1999 to 2001 he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. Blake was born in Sidcup, Kent, and was evacuated to the West Country during the Second World War. He attended Chislehurst and Sidcup Grammar School, where his English teacher, J. H. Walsh, influenced him into literature. His artistic development during his school years was helped by contact with the painter and cartoonist Alfred Jackson, the husband of Blake's Latin teacher, who encouraged his first submissions to Punch, resulting in his first publication at the age of 16. He read English Literature at Downing College, Cambridge, received his postgraduate teaching diploma from the University of London Institute of Education, and later studied part-time at the Chelsea School of Art and Camberwell College of Art.
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