Cathy's Art Diary

Interesting joint exhibition at Bankside Gallery of work by Quentin Blake and Linda Kitson. These artists’ work is different however the link between them is that they have been friends for over 50 years since they met at the Royal College of Art. Blake was showing imaginary portraits done with ballpoint pens. The works could easily be characters for books and were mainly made up of dense, intersecting lines and each one being a single colour. I preferred the slightly sparser compositions. Kitson showed delicate sketches of mountains in Italy and France along with older ones of London. These were alongside her more recent works done on iPad mainly of London Building sites. They were in startlingly, strange, bright colours but they were really effective. I particularly liked ones looking up through construction work or juxtaposing buildings. Closes 20 November 2022  

Charming exhibition at Hastings Contemporary of new work done specifically for the gallery by Quentin Blake. Blake is a patron of the gallery and this is evidently the latest in a series of shows for the space featuring flying people and creations. In two galleries either side of a window with a lovely view of the sea this show had a light whimsical feel. I loved the gentle pastel wash on the drawings and their sense of freedom. Closes 22 March 2020

Small exhibition at the House of Illustration looking at illustrations by Quentin Blake for two editions of the Cyrano de Bergerac book “Voyages to the Moon and the Sun”.   This book is seen as the first science fiction classic published in 1657. In it the main character travels to the moon, is imprisoned on earth, escapes to the sun and is put on trial by birds! OK I’m not rushing out to buy a copy but Blake was attracted to the work for the variety of subjects to draw.   As there were illustrations from two editions I’d have liked an indication on the pictures of which one they came from a bit more about the text which went with the pictures as I didn’t know the story. Some were easy to work out from the brief synopsis but others were a more obtuse.   I liked the fact these were the original drawings and some had notes to the publisher on them such as “Delete this monkey.” Closes 30 September 2018  

Nice little exhibition at the House of Illustration of work by Quentin Blake illustrating a book by Beatrix Potter. Potter had sent the words for the book to her publisher in 1916 but only completed one picture. The text was rediscovered 100 years later in the Victoria and Albert Museum archive and Quentin Blake was commissioned to illustrate it. The pictures were very distinctive Blake and there were some lovely witty images. It would have been nice to have the text with the pictures as it was hard to piece the story together just from the pictures. There seemed to be odd images such as the cat shooting crows which I am sure fitted in but looked odd out of context. I did fall for a lovely picture of a line up of three sheep and book plate incorporating other Beatrix Potter characters.   Closes on 27 February 2017