Serious side to Quentin Blake seen at Warwickshire gallery

QUENTIN Blake, better known as the illustrator of Roald Dahl’s books, is seen in more serious mode here with illustrations for hospital walls in this country and abroad.

The seriousness is in the locations rather than the work where Blake’s sense of humour invariably breaks through. In a set of quill and watercolour drawings for a mental health ward, he picks up on the connotations of the hospital’s address, Circus Rd, and milks it for all it’s worth.

The patients become performers for the day, doing stunts that would scare the staff to death in reality. His light touch suits the subject-matter well. Joyous figures fly through the air with greater ease than their troubled lives would ever allow. The drawings must have been a marvellous morale booster for them.

For us as spectators, it’s a more second-hand experience as they are all digitally produced facsimiles which, flawlessly accurate though they may be, makes it seem as if something vital is missing. Location shots of the images in situ might have been helpful in bridging this particular gap.

Fans of Blake’s work will probably be less troubled by this and will, I am sure, be pleasantly surprised by the work he did for a maternity hospital in Angers. These are artistically more ambitious. There are echoes of Chagall in the floating mothers and babies that Blake portrays making first contact in their birthing pools. The spontaneity and economy of his brushwork makes the work seem light and refreshing.

It’s Blake at his most seriously engaged, but this doesn’t in any way inhibit him. If anything it does the opposite. Fragonard even comes to mind. It’s all very liberated. It’s all very French.

Peter McCarthy