Illustration
The art of the Christmas card
It’s the thin end of the wedge, the slippery slope, the beginning of the end of a civilised Christmas. It…
How crazy was Louis Wain?
Before Tom Kitten, before Felix the Cat, before Thomas ‘Tom’ Cat, Sylvester James Pussycat Sr, Top Cat and Fat Freddy’s…
The grumpy genius of Raymond Briggs
No one captures better than Raymond Briggs the ambivalence that many of us feel towards the festive season, says Daisy Dunn
Every page of this astonishingly beautiful ode to the citrus is a treat
Laura Freeman is transported by J.C. Volkamer’s astonishingly beautiful ode to the citrus
The gentle genius of Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake’s unsettling illustrations reveal a gentle, kindly man with the soul of a pirate, says Daisy Dunn
The gloriously indecent life and art of Aubrey Beardsley
In seven short years, Aubrey Beardsley mastered the art of outrage. Laura Gascoigne on the gloriously indecent illustrations of a singular genius
John Flaxman is the missing link between superhero movies and Homer
As you enter the forecourt of the Royal Academy, you see them. A row of artistic titans, carved in stone,…
The beauty of Soviet anti-religious propaganda
Deep in the guts of Russian library stacks exists what remains — little acknowledged or discussed — of a dead…
Before Quentin Blake, there was Nancy Ekholm Burkert – Dahl’s forgotten illustrator
Bunnies were out. Beatrix Potter had the monopoly on rabbits, kittens, ducks and Mrs Tittlemouses. ‘I knew I had to…
The facts – and fiction – of piracy
Avast there, scurvy dogs! For a nation founded on piracy (the privateer Sir Francis Drake swelled the exchequer by raiding…
A new exhibition gives us the real Tolkien – not his awful legacy
To no one’s surprise, the Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian in Oxford, where J.R.R. spent so much…
Edward Bawden is deservedly one of Britain’s most popular 20th century artists
‘When I’m on good form,’ Edward Bawden told me, ‘I get to some point in the design and I laugh…
The star of the Winnie-the-Pooh show at V&A is E.H. Shepard
The thing about Winnie-the-Pooh, 91 years old this year, is that he’s the creature of E.H. Shepard, who drew him,…
A chance to see the Moomins’ creator for the genius she really was: Tove Janssons reviewed
Tove Jansson, according to her niece’s husband, was a squirt in size and could rarely be persuaded to eat, preferring…
Quentin Blake brings comfort and joy
His professional achievements aside, Quentin Blake’s life has been rather short on biographical event, so this book is not a…
V&A's Botticelli Reimagined has too many desperate pretenders
When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it…
The art of Beatrix Potter
Her best illustrations — limpid, ethereal, carefully observed — are masterly works of art in their own right, argues Matthew Dennison
Rex Whistler: ‘a desolate sense of loneliness amidst so much fun’
When Hugh and Mirabel Cecil’s book In Search of Rex Whistler was published in 2012, the late Brian Sewell reviewed…
