Edward Ardizzone: Artist and Illustrator

Product Information

Their shared grandmother had told the stories to both cousins and she had learned them from her father. When Ardizzone was just four or five years old his mother brought him and two siblings to Suffolk to be looked after by their grandmother so that she and her husband could remain in the Far East. His legacy persists through the many publications that remain in print bearing his compassionate imagery.

By 1939 Ardizzone was regularly holding one-man exhibitions at the Bloomsbury Gallery and, later, the Leger Gallery. Shephard was educated at Repton College, and then at the illustrious Slade School of Fine Art run by the legendary Professor Henry Tonks. Here he was taught by Sir William Rothenstein, before becoming Rothenstein’s personal studio assistant. He was an official war artist during World War II, working widely in Europe and North Africa, and his illustrated war diaries are notable records. Tonk’s teaching bred a formidable tenacity in his students, and a diversity of approach which was apparent throughout Shephard’s career.For illustrating Titus in Trouble, written by James Reeves, Ardizzone was a commended runner-up for the 1959 Greenaway Medal. The success of Tim All Alone and the continuation of the series clearly caught the attention of the wider art world as well as that of illustration: in 1967 Ardizzone was commissioned by the Royal Post Office to design birthday greetings telegrams, in 1970 became an elected member of the Royal Academy, and in 1971 was awarded a CBE for his contributions to the world of British art. Remains working mostly in London in the blitz – arrested (by the Home Guard) as a spy for sketching in the East End of London. Directly after school she noticed an advertisement in The Studio inviting applications for a training programme specialising in linocuts at The Grosvenor School of Art, London. An artist and illustrator of consummate draughtsmanship, Edward Ardizzone's many book illustrations are recognised all over the world.

Kennington was employed by the War Artists Advisory Committee (WAAC), the body that oversaw the British official war art scheme, from December 1939 and produced over a hundred RAF portraits before resigning his commission in September 1942.

His scenes of troops on manoeuvres through bombed out towns or civilians hunkered down in bomb-shelter bunkers are composed with an intimacy and softness that focuses on the characters involved rather then the shadow of the conflict. One of his happiest collaborations was that with Eleanor Farjeon, especially on The Little Bookroom (Oxford, 1955 collection).

From 1931-33 Tschudi lived in Paris and studied with the Cubist artist André Lhote, then with the Futurist Gino Severini at the Academie Ronson, and finally under Fernand Léger at the Academie Moderne. Edward Ardizzone [1900-1979] – universally known as ‘Ted’ – was born in Haiphon, French Indo-China (now Vietnam) to a father of Italian extraction and an English mother.

Agreeing a compromise, his father sent him to study machine draughtsmanship at the Knirr School of Art, Munich, with the thought that this would give his son a skill he might apply professionally.

Though just a small boy at the time, the journey to England was to have a strong influence on the content of his later work. In 1943 they devoted an entire wall to Ardizzone’s pictures, including many from his time in North Africa. Privately he continued to paint, mainly with oils, and to study the works of the great masters, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso in particular. Publication of Brian Alderson's Edward Ardizzone, A Preliminary Hand List of his Illustrated Books 1929-70.However, during the Second World War he travelled more widely in Britain and Europe than any other war artist, documenting his experiences in both drawings and diaries which today are kept by IWM.