Parker Cars Magazine: Issue 4

quentin blake
Blake is beyond brilliant. He
is anarchic, moral, infinitely
subversive, sometimes vicious,
socially acute, sparse when he
has to be, exuberantly lavish
in the details when he feels
like it.”
into its own only when he wrote for children. In
conjunction with Blake, there was a kind of alchemy.
I’ve never met a child who didn’t love Quentin Blake.”
Born and brought up in southeast London,
he now lives with his wife in a Victorian mansion
block in South Kensington. His studio is on the
second floor, “a large room, all painted white”.
“When I moved in 40 years ago it was empty,” he
remembers. “Now you can hardly move for books,
drawings; absolutely packed with stuff which is
wonderful in a way.”
From the studio window he looks out over one
of those lovely city squares populated by trees.
While working, however, he faces away from the
window to stop himself getting distracted.
“You see the changing seasons, and I’m
constantly looking out of the window but, when I’m
drawing I don’t look at anything except the piece of
paper in front of me.”
For three months a year he relocates to his
house in southwest France.
Having created so many drawings and so many
characters over the years, there must be one that
40 where to, parker?