Survey of Edward Ardizzone to Lund Humphries

Lund Humphries is to publish the first fully illustrated survey of the work of artist Edward Ardizzone in September to coincide with a "major" accompanying exhibition at House of Illustration.

Lund Humphries holds world rights to Edward Ardizzone: Artist and Illustrator by Alan Powers.

The book provides the first fully illustrated survey of Ardizzone's work, placing his activity as an artist and illustrator in the context of 20th-century British art, illustration, printing and publishing. Illustrated with many previously unpublished images, it draws for the first time on the family’s archives, those of Ardizzone’s publishers and conversations with those who knew the artist. The book is published to coincide with 'Ardizzone: A Retrospective', an exhibition co-curated by Powers and House of Illustration’s Olivia Ahmad, on display between 23rd September 2016 and 15th January 2017.

Ardizzone, RA, CBE (1900–1979) is best known for his illustrated children's books, almost continuously available since they were first published from the late 1930s onwards. His "lively" line-and-wash drawings were based on constant observation of the world, disciplined by classical figure composition. Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain (Frances Lincoln's Children's Books) was the first of a dozen books that he both wrote and illustrated, while adding visual commentaries to the words of contemporaries such as Eleanor Farjeon and Robert Graves and to classic authors from Cervantes and Bunyan to Dickens and Trollope.

In the Second World War, Ardizzone served as a war artist across Europe and North Africa, recording "humorous and tragic" scenes alike with "unparalleled sympathy".

Sir Quentin Blake said: "Alan Powers has a keen sense of his subject’s achievement, and is seriously knowledgeable on the history, practice, and art of illustration. I think Ardizzone would have approved."