MODERN BRITISH: Edward Ardizzone

Edward Ardizzone was born in 1900 in French Indochina. He was possessed with a quick eye and was able to capture the very essence of life. By the outbreak of World War Two he was already a household name, spending six years as Britain's official war artist. He became a master of book illustration, embellishing works for both adults and children; drawings remarkable both for their detail and faultless relationship to the page. Well-known works are the Little Tim series of books.

Ardizzone's observation of the atmosphere of childhood, of the world conjured by children's writers for whose books these drawings were commissioned, was acute, yet the works themselves appeal in their intricacy, intimacy and beauty equally to children and adults alike.