Posy Simmonds: A Retrospective


Delightful exhibition at the House of Illustration looking at the work of the cartoonist/graphic novelist Posy Simmmonds.

I’ve been a Posy Simmonds fan since her work on the Guardian Women’s Page and have all the novels so it was wonderful to revisit her work and see her gentle satire of British life. I was laughing out loud from the first cartoon I read!

It was lovely to see her childhood drawings which already parodied school friend style magazines and the show showed how her style changed as printing methods developed. It looked at her books for children as well and included a sketchbook for her book about the old Cat “Fred”.

The last room was dedicated to her latest book “Cassandra Darke” and had the complete layout around the walls with lots of sketchbooks and preliminary drawings to show how the ideas developed. This was the first book she had produced digitally but it was reassuring to see that all the drawings were still hand done and her husband still typesets and prints the text. A real work of art!

Closed 15 September 2019

Review
Evening Standard



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