London has a new museum, and it’s also the largest of its kind in the world devoted entirely to hand-drawn illustrations.
Founded by prolific artist Sir Quentin Blake, it’s actually the second home for the museum after its temporary existence as the House of Illustration in King’s Cross. However, when a former industrial building that’s been empty since the 1950s came up for grabs, they saw the opportunity to create a much larger permanent collection in London.
Due to open in late 2022 at a cost of £8 million, it actually cost £12.5 million and is now finally ready to welcome visitors. And as is so often the case with renovations of historic buildings, you can both see and not see where all the money has gone.
The restoration has cleaned up the building without losing its obvious heritage, so expect little bits of ironwork to poke out of the walls in random places, and the many alterations and infills in the brickwork to be clearly shown off rather than hidden.
Into this, they’ve slotted the modern museum.
A gap between two old buildings has been filled in with a modern extension that links the two sides, while also being the new entrance, and of course, the gift shop and cafe.
The site in 2022
The site in 2026
There’s a free library space filled with a mix of seating, play areas, and a very wide range of books, from children’s to quite adult. There’s also a charming nook with a door that looks right out of The Hobbit, and if it wasn’t also the fire escape would have been crying out for a cosy chair to curl up on.
The rest of the museum is given over to three exhibition spaces.
A permanent Quentin Blake gallery is at the top, and will have a regularly changing collection of works from his archive on show. As he has illustrated over 300 books and commissions for thousands more artworks elsewhere, it’s going to be decades before they work their way through his archive.
The opening exhibition includes one of his commissions to design whiskey bottle labels – and they’re all characters from Macbeth drawn as birds.
The rest of the room is filled with his playful artworks from books and exhibitions.
One floor down is a room filled with their first temporary exhibition, a wide-ranging collection by Murugiah that opens with a vast felt confection by the stairs and a display of equally bright drawings, collages and sculptures.
And the third exhibition is in a separate former goods shed building that’s been converted into a gallery. Perhaps aptly, considering that the former House of Illustration site in King’s Cross is now home to Queer Britain, this is the first major exhibition on queer comic-making in the UK, spanning from the 1940s to the present day.
It opens with a comic you can keep, and then ranges across a wide range of artworks from queer people living their lives to the first black gay superhero, trans rights, and political campaigning in the 1980s. Personally, the Mary Whitehouse caricature by Cath Jackson, “40 million bigots can’t be wrong”, is something I’d happily have on my wall.
Away from the exhibitions, it’s the building that stands out.
Some of the rooms look cleaner but otherwise untouched from a pre-conversion visit, but look carefully, and you can see air conditioning in the flooring to climate control the art galleries, the brickwork is cleaned, but raw and the old cobblestone (setts) paving restored.
There’s a lift between the floors, and it’s been installed in a raw brick shaft, but to my howl of anguish, they’ve put a mirror inside the lift instead of a window. So you can’t see the brickwork as you ascend through the museum. Accessibility is also catered for through the provision of a Changing Places-grade toilet and BSL language interpretation for the exhibition signs.
The other toilets are unisex cubicles, which sensibly avoids the need for separate blocks and queues for the ladies.
Outside, the industrial heritage is easier to spy, if only thanks to being right next to the Thames Water company that now owns the New River. You can even hear the water rushing under the manhole covers. A former “windmill” building is also being turned into the artists-in-residence studio so they can be literally in residence.
A nice touch is that a new path and outdoor garden area have been created around the side of the main building, and will be open to the public when the museum is open, creating a public footpath between Myddelton Passage and Amwell Street for the first time.
And running through the shop, the remains of the old light railway that used to move coal around the site when it was still pumping water for London.
The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration opens on Friday 5th June.
The ground floor and library are free, while the three exhibitions are paid entry.
Adults: £15.00
Student: £11.50
Children (5-17): £6
Children (4 and under): Free
Universal credit (etc): £1
National Art Pass: £7.50
Details here.
The official entry is on Myddelton Passage, but you can also use the Amwell Street entrance, which is easier to find.
It’s about a 10 minute walk from Angel tube station.
