The House of Illustration just north of King’s Cross station, London, contains three exhibition spaces.
The Main Gallery (four rooms) is currently hosting a fascinating exhibition of posters and other everyday products from North Korea, highlighting the distinctive graphic design and colour palette of that most isolated of countries.
In the South Gallery (one room, as big as a church hall) is a generous selection of the graphic journalism of Lucinda Rogers.
And off the corridor between the two is a small L-shaped room which will, apparently, be devoted in perpetuity to a succession of displays by the moving force behind the House of Illustration, the famous children’s illustrator, Sir Quentin Blake. Hence its title – the Quentin Blake Gallery.
Arrows of Love
To coincide with Valentine’s Day this year, Blake selected 18 pencil drawings from a series he’s been developing off and on, depicting women avoiding or embracing Cupid’s arrow.
Arrows of Love 7 by Quentin Blake
In the charming wall label, Blake explains that, alongside commissioned work and projects, he always has numerous side works on the go – the results of moments of inspiration, or recurring ideas, which he sketches out and then puts to one side to get on with the paid work.
For example, he mentions a series he’s working on which features women on tightropes, sometimes with birds.
And another has been this series of women reacting in different ways to Cupid’s arrow(s).
Arrows of Love 6 by Quentin Blake
These kind of offshoots and occasional works had nowhere to be shown – until now, with the arrival of the House of Illustration, and the advent of a small gallery devoted just to his work – the perfect venue for stylish little sets and jeux d’esprit!
Blake himself describes the drawings:
Each of them is an outline, an economical way to depict the shapes and gestures that tell us what they are feeling… And of course the arrows are not real arrows, but little flying graphic equivalents, there are only one or two moments when they even slightly real…
All of the women are nude except for one who is wearing a breastplate which the arrows are bouncing off. She might be the start of a sequence on the theme of ‘incongruous things to wear’…
Installation view of ‘Arrows of Love’ by Quentin Blake at the House of Illustration. Photo by Paul Grover
Apart from the obvious charm and whimsy of his light, gawky, one-line style – and the beguiling inventiveness of the drawings, the way they surprise you with new and comic variations on the theme – I’m afraid the thing that struck me most was – the pubic hair!
Blake is of course overwhelmingly known as an illustrator of children’s books, pre-pubescent very innocent children’s books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have two children who both read their way through all the Roald Dahl books with their Blake illustrations, as well as some of the books he both wrote and illustrated, for example one of our family favourites, the wonderful Cockatoos.
Which is why in my mind I think of Blake as a kind of quintessence of innocence, associating him with the utter sexlessness of The BFG or The Twits or Fantastic Mr Fox.
So I could see the fun and whimsy in the working out of all the variations of the theme, and found almost all the pictures delightful and charming – but was just brought up a little short by, well, the unexpected pubes!
Arrows of Love 5 by Quentin Blake
Obviously it’s not worth crossing London just to see 18 or so amusing pencil drawings – but it very much IS worth going out of your way to visit the exhibition of North Korean produce, AND the Lucinda Rogers exhibition, and to top them both off with these Blake frivolities – like the cherry on the top of a knickerbocker glory: all three shows are included in the same admission price of £7.50.
Related links
- Quentin Blake: Arrows of Love continues at the House of Illustration until 29 April 2018
- Made in North Korea: Everyday Graphics from the DPRK continues at the House of Illustration until 13 May 2018
- House of Illustration website
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