{"id":724322,"date":"2026-06-09T03:02:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T03:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/724322\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T03:02:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T03:02:41","slug":"londons-quentin-blake-centre-for-illustration-opens-in-a-bid-to-draw-new-audiences-to-the-art-form","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/724322\/","title":{"rendered":"London\u2019s Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration opens in a bid to draw new audiences to the art form"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world\u2019s biggest space dedicated to illustration has opened in London. Can it help to protect the art amid rising threats from AI?<\/p>\n

The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration in London\u2019s Clerkenwell opened this week. The museum is both a monument to a national treasure and a celebration of a medium in dire need of protection.<\/p>\n

The project has been decades in the making \u2013 a dream of illustrator Quentin Blake\u2019s since he was children\u2019s laureate in 1999. Now that it\u2019s finally here, it arrives as the world\u2019s largest space dedicated to illustration. The site is unusual \u2013 an 18th-century waterworks, which has been derelict since the 1950s \u2013 and comprises three exhibition spaces, a caf\u00e9, shop, gardens and a library. The breadth of the artform is apparent through children\u2019s story books, comics, graphic novels and more on display. \u201cWe think of illustration as art with a job to do,\u201d says the centre\u2019s artistic director, Olivia Ahmad. \u201cIt\u2019s art that\u2019s trying to tell you something specific: that might be a story or an instruction, or it might be trying to persuade you of something for good or bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Sitting pretty: Quentin Blake with \u2018A Bridge to the Past\u2019, 2026 (Image Benedict Johnson)<\/p>\n

\"\"Drawing up plans: Caf\u00e9 terrace (Images: Hufton+Crow)<\/p>\n

\"\"In living colour: The \u2018Murugiah: Ever Feel\u00a0Like\u2026\u2019 exhibition <\/p>\n

The first temporary exhibition, Queer as Comics, charts 80 years of queer comic-making. Pieces by Tove Jansson, Alison Bechdel and Tom of Finland are included in a line-up of 60 artists. Elsewhere, a solo exhibition spotlights the colourful, kaleidoscopic work of contemporary British Sri Lankan illustrator and designer Murugiah. The third and final space is dedicated to the centre\u2019s namesake and will feature rotating thematic shows of Blake\u2019s work. The first of these focuses on performance, highlighting the artist\u2019s close relationship with the theatrical. On the walls are characters breathing fire \u2013 rendered in a wispy cloud of yellow-and-orange watercolour paint \u2013 as well as cartwheeling circus performers and the illustrations that Blake created during opening nights of plays to accompany theatre reviews in Punch magazine in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

The centre\u2019s opening comes at a time when AI threatens to replace the role of illustrators and does so by stealing their work and breaching copyright. \u201cAI-generated imagery looks at what\u2019s already there and re-presents it,\u201d says Ahmad. \u201cWhat is special about when people make work is how leaps are made, as well as the direct communication between one person and another through an image.\u201d The scribbles and wiggles of Quentin Blake\u2019s drawings have accompanied many of us since childhood. This new space will help to inspire and defend the illustrators of the future, whose works will enrich the lives of many to come.
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