The Christie’s Books & Manuscripts department presents Quentin Blake: 200 Drawings, 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 set to open in 2022. Following the success of Quentin Blake: Not in Books in 2019, 200 Drawings will again showcase the variety of work undertaken over the years alongside book illustration – from drawings produced for exhibitions at Hastings Contemporary or for publication in The QB Papers to designs for public artwork at Cambridge University’s Museum of Zoology and the Institut Français. Bidding starts at £100.

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’.

A selection of highlights of the sale will be on view at our King Street location from 3^rd December – 8^th December.

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