[To be an illustrator] you have to be a mini actor. If the figure is to walk jauntily with its nose in the air, you have to imagine what that feels like. You have to be the person and observe the person, and do both these things at once. – Raymond Briggs

Raymond Briggs: A Retrospective is a touring exhibition from Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration. With never-before-seen artwork in the North of England, this exhibition delves into the work of the author-illustrator behind some of the UK’s most influential children’s books and graphic novels.

Raymond Briggs (1934-2022) is best-known for silent picturebook The Snowman (1978). But over a 60-year career, Briggs created illustrated books on themes from family relationships and grief to social mobility and political satire.

This exhibition includes work from Briggs’s pioneering titles, including The Snowman, Father Christmas (1973), Fungus the Bogeyman (1977) and autobiographical graphic novel Ethel and Ernest (1998). On show are his drawings, hand-lettered typography and page designs from his earliest commissions to his 2004 book The Puddleman.

Co-curated by Nicolette Jones and Katie McCurrach.

This exhibition features original illustrations courtesy of Raymond Briggs’s Archive and Penguin Random House.