Charlotte Richardson is a PaperTigers blogger and contributor based in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. She was in Melbourne, Australia September-December, 2007.


While I was in Melbourne (Australia) recently, Books Illustrated—a bookshop, gallery, and studio that’s part of a vibrant community of Melbourne children’s book writers, illustrators and publishers—proved to be a precious resource. Through its two directors, illustrator Ann James and her partner Ann Haddon (known as Jess for confusion-prevention), I got a look into the wonderful world of exhibiting children’s book illustration as art.

“The two Anns” are well equipped guides into this exciting field. For over twenty years, they have been a force for good in the Australian world of children’s books. On my first visit to Books Illustrated, Ann James gave me a thorough rundown of people to contact and ideas to follow up, and subsequently I did just that, often at book parties right in their shop. Many a book has been launched at Books Illustrated, fizzied up with champagne, brightened up with beautiful displays of original illustrations from the book, and supported by an eager crowd of kids and adults listening raptly as the author read. There I had the pleasure to meet Sally Rippin, Anne Spudvilas, Hazel Edwards and Elise Hurst, all featured in PaperTigers, as well as many others.

Ann and Jess’ generosity and community spirit have earned the gratitude of many Australian illustrators. As writer Hazel Edwards (whose books Sportsmad and Muscles Ann James illustrated) says, their style is “roll up your sleeves, move the furniture, hang the paintings, make the coffee and create in all art forms, including friendship.” The Anns are now taking their exuberant Aussie spirit into commissioning limited edition fine art prints of children’s book illustrations and curating and exhibiting original illustrations at home and abroad.

Changes Afoot

To allow time for expanding their adventures, this month they are closing their popular bookshop business and leaving the Gasworks Park site. They’ll open in February at a different locale on Port Phillip Bay and by appointment only. Visitors there will be able to view and purchase original Australian children's book illustrations and limited edition prints. Ann James's studio will be at this venue - and open by appointment also. From the new site, they’ll plan exhibits in collaboration with regional galleries, publishers of children’s picture books, and Australian government organizations like the Australian Council for the Arts, the Copyright Agency Ltd., and VicArts, and develop projects with more partners farther afield.

Internationally Books Illustrated has exhibited in Japan, Korea, and Taipei, supported by Austrade (a government organization that promotes business abroad), DEET, and Asialink. Their exhibits and workshops have traveled to Seoul under the auspices of the entrepreneurial Korean/Australian agency, The Choicemaker. As one example of their networking, Sally Rippin’s Water Buffalo Boy (2008) was commissioned by a Korean publisher after the Anns introduced her. 

Producing Exhibits

Curating exhibits of children’s book illustrations involves all the planning of any traveling art exhibit: determining availability of artwork, assembling it, deciding how to display it and, in the case of one-book exhibits, documenting the illustration process. “We talk extensively with each illustrator to determine what work to feature and in what sequence, what themes to emphasize, and how the work might best fit a particular gallery space,” Ann James explained. “Our retrospective show of Terry Denton’s 20-year career, for example, took a year to plan.”

Moreover, in their case, projects are not just art exhibits. In conjunction with a February 2008 exhibition of Alison Lester’s Are We There Yet? at the New Cultural Center in isolated Port Hedland, Western Australia, for example, a team of five children’s authors and illustrators will work with the community to present workshops for kids and adults. This exhibition has already traveled to several other Australian galleries and to Tokyo and Taipei. The International Children’s Festival in Shanghai, which happens in June, will show “An Australian Menagerie,” including Ann James’ illustrations for The Way I Love You (shown in Taipei and Beijing in 2007) and limited edition prints of "animals in picture books" by twenty other Australian illustrators. Seven more exhibitions all over Australia are also being planned.

The Bigger Picture in Australia

Books Illustrated, with its exploration of visual narrative, the process of illustration, and the techniques, skills and tools of children’s book illustration, is part of an enthusiastic embracing of children’s book illustration in Australia. The Lu Rees Archives in Canberra has the most comprehensive collection of Australian children’s literature. Dromkeen, a museum of children’s literature in a historic country homestead near Melbourne, displays a magnificent collection of artwork and manuscripts and holds a summer camp where children learn bookmaking. The Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre in Western Australia includes a gallery, an education program, and a residential program, including school curriculum-based workshops. With encouragement from Ann and Jess, Australian state libraries are considering building collections of children’s book illustrations. In time, the Anns hope to produce catalogs for their own exhibits that would document each illustrator’s life and work. These would eventually comprise a small history of part of Australian children’s literature.

And Beyond

Worldwide, many places and organizations promote and exhibit children’s book illustration, and I asked the Anns to fill me in on groups outside Australia with missions similar to their own. In the U.S., they mentioned Mazza Museum in Findlay OH and the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, as well as the bookshop-gallery Every Picture Tells a Story in Santa Monica, CA and Books of Wonder, a New York institution known for its catalogs, readings, and signing events. They also cited the Bush Gallery in Boston. It’s no longer in operation, but it was an early leader in exhibiting children’s book illustrations in the U.S.

In London, John Huddy’s The Illustration Cupboard has since the 1990’s published a wonderful catalog of mostly British book illustrations for children. “Huddy holds exhibitions for collectors and so tends to have an adult orientation, whereas Books Illustrated is more child-oriented. England had nothing like this before,” Ann Haddon told me, “except Chris Beetles Ltd., a London gallery that exhibits and sells works on paper, including classic illustrations from artists like Honoré Daumier, William Blake, Ernest H. Shepard and Edward Ardizzone.” At Seven Stories in Newcastle, U.K., children’s literature experts and enthusiasts, including Michael Rosen and Quentin Blake, have developed a very creative way to display a collection of work that shows the illustration process and much more.

As these institutions continue to grow, more people will see children’s book illustration, both original and in high-quality limited edition prints, as the art form it truly is, and all lovers of children’s picture books—including illustrators themselves—will benefit. Thanks to Ann James and Ann Haddon of Books Illustrated for their work in this exciting field and for taking me on a guided tour!

Posted January 2008