John Burningham, (April 27, 1936 to January 4, 2019) was a British illustrator. His Guardian obit said:
'The evolution of the art of picturebook-making, of composing a graphic sequence of pictures and words in interdependent harmony, owes much to Burningham, who along with Maurice Sendak was one of the greatest masters of the medium. The word “illustrator”, as it is traditionally employed, is inadequate when attempting to describe Burningham’s oeuvre. With one or two notable exceptions, almost all of his work was self-authored, words and pictures developed and refined in tandem, with increasing subtlety and economy over the course of his career.
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'There are many highlights [in his career], but ...[his] second Greenaway medal winner, Mr Gumpy’s Outing, in 1970, stands out as a brilliant and highly influential example of cumulative graphic storytelling..... Burningham also illustrated with distinction Ian Fleming’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1964 and Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows in 1983.
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'He was never a confident speaker or writer in the traditional sense; his genius lay in an ability to communicate in a childlike but never childish visual language and in his understanding of the mutually exclusive worlds of childhood and adulthood...'
The Guardian reviewed biographical details in Burnham's life in more words than we include now:
'Born in Farnham, Surrey, Burningham spent much of his childhood being moved around a succession of progressive schools that his liberally minded parents Jessie Macintosh and Charles Burningham wanted to try out. His father had fought in the trenches in the first world war but was registered as a conscientious objector at the outbreak of the second world war in 1939.
'The family let out their house in Farnham and during the war years travelled the country in a caravan, setting up in remote rural spots in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Yorkshire, where his father would find work and John and his older sisters, Margaret and Elspeth, would be sent to the local schools.
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'After two and a half years of non-military service as a conscientious objector, involving heavy labour on forestry and housing projects, Burningham bumped into a former Summerhill school friend on Waterloo Bridge in London, who mentioned that he was studying illustration and graphic design at the Central School of Art. John liked the sound of this and decided to try for a place himself. Despite not having attended the usual prerequisite art foundation course he presented a portfolio of drawings and was accepted.
'At the Central he was taught by the painter Keith Vaughan, the designer and illustrator Laurence Scarfe and the textile designer Bernard Nevill. Here he met and later married, in 1964, Helen Oxenbury. Although Helen was studying theatre design, her own career as an illustrator blossomed too, and she went on to create many award-winning picture books including, with Michael Rosen, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (1989). Musing on how two artists so successful in the same field managed to stay together for so long, John speculated that the reason must be that each of them always thought of the other as the better artist.
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'But his first big break came in London shortly afterwards when he was commissioned by Harold Hutchinson, publicity director at London Transport, to produce a number of posters. This was something of a dream commission for a young illustrator, being comparatively well paid, printed to the highest standards of the time and presenting the artist’s work at large scale to a wide audience.
'...Later, Burningham would explore further the possibilities of photographic collage and paint through experimental books such as England (1992), Cloudland (1996) and France (1998).
'In 2010 Burningham and Oxenbury collaborated for the first time to produce There’s Going to Be a Baby. Last year, they were jointly awarded the BookTrust’s lifetime achievement award, for their outstanding contribution to children’s literature.'
And here is a fine example of a cat in Burnham's art-
'Born in Farnham, Surrey, Burningham spent much of his childhood being moved around a succession of progressive schools that his liberally minded parents Jessie Macintosh and Charles Burningham wanted to try out. His father had fought in the trenches in the first world war but was registered as a conscientious objector at the outbreak of the second world war in 1939.
'The family let out their house in Farnham and during the war years travelled the country in a caravan, setting up in remote rural spots in Gloucestershire, Herefordshire and Yorkshire, where his father would find work and John and his older sisters, Margaret and Elspeth, would be sent to the local schools.
....
'After two and a half years of non-military service as a conscientious objector, involving heavy labour on forestry and housing projects, Burningham bumped into a former Summerhill school friend on Waterloo Bridge in London, who mentioned that he was studying illustration and graphic design at the Central School of Art. John liked the sound of this and decided to try for a place himself. Despite not having attended the usual prerequisite art foundation course he presented a portfolio of drawings and was accepted.
'At the Central he was taught by the painter Keith Vaughan, the designer and illustrator Laurence Scarfe and the textile designer Bernard Nevill. Here he met and later married, in 1964, Helen Oxenbury. Although Helen was studying theatre design, her own career as an illustrator blossomed too, and she went on to create many award-winning picture books including, with Michael Rosen, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (1989). Musing on how two artists so successful in the same field managed to stay together for so long, John speculated that the reason must be that each of them always thought of the other as the better artist.
.....
'But his first big break came in London shortly afterwards when he was commissioned by Harold Hutchinson, publicity director at London Transport, to produce a number of posters. This was something of a dream commission for a young illustrator, being comparatively well paid, printed to the highest standards of the time and presenting the artist’s work at large scale to a wide audience.
'...Later, Burningham would explore further the possibilities of photographic collage and paint through experimental books such as England (1992), Cloudland (1996) and France (1998).
'In 2010 Burningham and Oxenbury collaborated for the first time to produce There’s Going to Be a Baby. Last year, they were jointly awarded the BookTrust’s lifetime achievement award, for their outstanding contribution to children’s literature.'
And here is a fine example of a cat in Burnham's art-
1 comment:
as an aspiring illustrator myself, I enjoyed the history of his journey.
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